What’s it like to be in a Huge Chapter?

[Benzgirl]

Meals: One of my chapters is doing 2 seatings - 5 to 6 and 6 to 7. Another chapter is offering the out-of-house girls a "voucher" to go to the house for dinner on another night.
Chapter: They are using classrooms and meeting rooms in the Union.

All chapters on this campus are running into the same issue so it's not unique to ours. Chapter rooms / dining rooms were built for 100 not 180.

[KSUViolet06]

I've become very interested in how chapters at my school will handle these issues (space/meetings/etc.) KSU isn't a Bama/UA/Ole Miss but now has a chapter total that is very close to 200 (with chapters over that at this point, quota was 65 this year.) I don't think many of the chapters can fit their entire membership in their chapter rooms anymore!

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by KSUViolet06

I've become very interested in how chapters at my school will handle these issues (space/meetings/etc.) KSU isn't a Bama/UA/Ole Miss but now has a chapter total that is very close to 200 (with chapters over that at this point, quota was 65 this year.) I don't think many of the chapters can fit their entire membership in their chapter rooms anymore!

I think your chapters will hit Clemson's in size if quota holds steady for y'all for the next few years, and this is a problem we run into as well. If all of our chapter were to show up to chapter we would absolutely run out of chairs and break fire code in the lecture hall we've been assigned for chapter meetings. I have a feeling this will happen during officer elections as every girl makes an effort to attend that night. There's one larger lecture hall I know of we could use but it seats 840 and at that point chapter gets way too spaced out and impersonal to be effective.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm glad KSU is open for extension because it sure sounds like y'all need it!

[Benzgirl]

Originally Posted by clemsongirl

I think your chapters will hit Clemson's in size if quota holds steady for y'all for the next few years, and this is a problem we run into as well. If all of our chapter were to show up to chapter we would absolutely run out of chairs and break fire code in the lecture hall we've been assigned for chapter meetings. I have a feeling this will happen during officer elections as every girl makes an effort to attend that night. There's one larger lecture hall I know of we could use but it seats 840 and at that point chapter gets way too spaced out and impersonal to be effective.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm glad KSU is open for extension because it sure sounds like y'all need it!

Kent has another colonization coming up in the spring to try to curtail this growth. It's smart since houses are very small.

[KSUViolet06]

^^^^They're not teeny tiny (you went to OSU so I totally see why you say that lol) but we definitely have the housing size best fitting like, 90-100 member chapters (which was typical size in mid-late 2000s.)

I think the largest chapter house in terms of number of beds might sleep 35, but I am not sure (smallest sleeps about 18.) So now you have 200 member chapters and 40 beds. Crazy!

[DubaiSis]

I think the perfect chapter size/house size is one that will sleep the sophomores plus exec plus a few. When it gets where not even all the sophomores can live in (which basically mean they never get to live in) then it's time for expansion or construction or both. But I would NOT be too supportive of increasing the building size because this massive growth WILL reverse. Probably not to the 70's era problem, but I wouldn't want to deal with a house that has to sleep 100 in order to pay the bills. If it is built to sleep 100 and was paid for 20 years ago, then it can probably sleep 75 and just give everyone more breathing room, but suddenly having it sleep 50 and the seniors absolutely positively will not live in, and will resign if forced to, then you've got a problem.

KSU seems to have a very strong and stable Greek system so I'd be supportive of them having houses that sleep 50+ but I'm glad to see there is growth happening there. When there aren't even classrooms that can hold you, it's time for a change.

Even tightening down RFM (dare I say bigger cuts after round 1?) to decrease quota at the end should be considered at some schools. Yes that will eliminate the fantastic placement numbers, but at least it would be for a decent reason. I would think RFM could be tweaked so that a goal of, say, quota of 75 could be reached. It couldn't be written in stone that way for RFM to continue to work correctly. But if they know the SRCs get 90% return rates, then they should be able to figure out a new baseline number after round one. Would the earth tilt off its axis?

[33girl]

Tightening RFM and denying women membership just so the houses aren't overflowing is kind of silly. Lots of people don't want to/should not live in the house EVER, and never living in the house doesn't mean you can't live with sisters.

[DGTess]

This is foreign to me (my chapter totaled 15-20 at the time), but is it really an issue that seniors, and some juniors, simply refuse to live in houses -- to the point they'd resign rather than do so? I don't get the concept at all. We were so concentrated on our studies and internships/plant trips/interviews etc. that the idea of finding an apartment, keeping it clean, doing our own shopping for toilet paper and light bulbs and such, and general home responsibilities was something we literally couldn't be bothered with.

IIUC, my university-owned chapter house (we didn't have a house then) sleeps about 30 of the 100-member chapter, and every year there are more who want to live in than out, largely for the same reasons. MOST of the others live in dorms. Is this the oddball?

[irishpipes]

Originally Posted by DGTess

This is foreign to me (my chapter totaled 15-20 at the time), but is it really an issue that seniors, and some juniors, simply refuse to live in houses -- to the point they'd resign rather than do so? I don't get the concept at all. We were so concentrated on our studies and internships/plant trips/interviews etc. that the idea of finding an apartment, keeping it clean, doing our own shopping for toilet paper and light bulbs and such, and general home responsibilities was something we literally couldn't be bothered with.

IIUC, my university-owned chapter house (we didn't have a house then) sleeps about 30 of the 100-member chapter, and every year there are more who want to live in than out, largely for the same reasons. MOST of the others live in dorms. Is this the oddball?

It is difficult to get sophomores to live in, let alone juniors and seniors. To a large degree, this generation has never shared a room, or a bathroom, or a closet. They also want the freedom to have boys spend the night, to host parties, and serve/consume alcohol.

[KSUViolet06]

To clarify, while I think larger meeting spaces is critical, I think the current housing sizes (in terms of number of beds) work well for KSU sororities even with the exponential growth.

Two reasons:

*With the addition of the new colony, the NM class numbers will probably top off around 50 (assuming that number of PNMs tends to remain at about 400.)

*The average KSU sorority member follows the pattern of spending either freshman or sophomore year in the dorms, living in the house sophomore or junior year, then living in an apt AFTER you live in (as either a junior or senior depending on when you joined and what year you were in when you chose to live in.) The current sizes will pretty much allow for a good portion of the sophomore class to live in. It also ensures that you'll ALWAYS have it full, because you are not asking for an entire class of 60 to move in. More like half that. And really once you add in Exec, you have fewer beds than that!

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by DGTess

This is foreign to me (my chapter totaled 15-20 at the time), but is it really an issue that seniors, and some juniors, simply refuse to live in houses -- to the point they'd resign rather than do so? I don't get the concept at all. We were so concentrated on our studies and internships/plant trips/interviews etc. that the idea of finding an apartment, keeping it clean, doing our own shopping for toilet paper and light bulbs and such, and general home responsibilities was something we literally couldn't be bothered with.

IIUC, my university-owned chapter house (we didn't have a house then) sleeps about 30 of the 100-member chapter, and every year there are more who want to live in than out, largely for the same reasons. MOST of the others live in dorms. Is this the oddball?

This is an issue I've seen at Clemson, and not just with Greek housing. Less than 50% of sophomores choose to stay on campus-they want housing without RAs, rules, and that is larger and nicer than what they would get if they lived in an on-campus dorm or apartment. There isn't room for juniors and seniors to live on campus and the campus culture makes it so that few want to.

The general trend is that sophomores in sororities live in the Greek dorm floors, which hold between 30-48 girls, but convincing upperclassmen to live in is nigh-impossible because very, very few juniors and seniors stay on campus. It's a little more relaxed for fraternities, but they are also smaller and thus a higher percentage of the membership has to live in their space to fill it.

[DGTess]

Originally Posted by clemsongirl

This is an issue I've seen at Clemson, and not just with Greek housing. Less than 50% of sophomores choose to stay on campus-they want housing without RAs, rules, and that is larger and nicer than what they would get if they lived in an on-campus dorm or apartment. There isn't room for juniors and seniors to live on campus and the campus culture makes it so that few want to.

This may be a significant part of it. We had no RAs, few rules, no curfew. The chapter has a house now, but we had one floor of the dormitory and none of my sisters lived off campus the whole time I was there. We had one housekeeper who did bathrooms and hallways.

Of course, it was the '70s -- the height of "I won't live by someone else's rules". But also, none of my sisters left early due to pregnancy, drugs, or grades.

[clemsongirl]

Originally Posted by DGTess

This may be a significant part of it. We had no RAs, few rules, no curfew. The chapter has a house now, but we had one floor of the dormitory and none of my sisters lived off campus the whole time I was there. We had one housekeeper who did bathrooms and hallways.

Of course, it was the '70s -- the height of "I won't live by someone else's rules". But also, none of my sisters left early due to pregnancy, drugs, or grades.

I will add that the Greek housing here does not have RAs, just house managers or property managers designated by the chapter to be liasons with the university housing. Apparently they used to, though-my old room on the ADPi floor had a sign that said RA that I had to cover up so girls didn't think that was my job!

It is probably also easier to convince girls to live on when you have an actual house and not a floor of a dorm as we do, because aside from the obvious perk of living with your pledge class there really is no incentive to stay in a run-of-the-mill dorm versus a nicer apartment. That is more of a campus-specific issue that will hopefully be solved down the road with the eventual building of a Greek Row.

[ruellesmith]

I can tell you that dealing with the issues of a 'super size' chapter can be difficult. Like many things, though, once you get used to it, it becomes 'how we've always done it' and just 'what we do.'

[DubaiSis]

To the answer about getting girls to live in, yes, they will absolutely surrender their membership as opposed to being made to live in. We had a problem with that every year, but the chapter was small,the house was big and you gotta do what you gotta do. I would hate to think that this is EVER an issue with the huge chapters.