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

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by NWguy

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?

2) That's a mystery to me. Nobody's ever really explained it. Some chapters are around 400. Of course, not everybody eats every meal, but still it's a massive amount of food. How many restaurants feed that many every meal, every day?

3) Lights out times? Curfews? You must be thinking of the 1950s. Girls have access to the house through their Act cards (activity cards). They come and go as they wish. No house mother goes around making sure every darling is in bed. They stopped doing that in the 1960s.

[Titchou]

They feed them the same way any facility does - buffet or banquet style. 150 is not that many people. At Alabama they have serving lines like a cafeteria with a full c ommercial kitchen.

[AnchorAlumna]

I'm goggling at the amount of food they have to buy and how they prepare all of it. I know many of them were or are using catering services...but the work that goes into it on the caterer's end....wow! I can't even imagine a kitchen that big!! And woe be if you lose the contract!

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

I'm goggling at the amount of food they have to buy and how they prepare all of it. I know many of them were or are using catering services...but the work that goes into it on the caterer's end....wow! I can't even imagine a kitchen that big!! And woe be if you lose the contract!

I know lots of chapters don't have a set dinner time, so women come and go within a several-hour block. Also, some have night classes and get a "to-go plate" left in the fridge for them.

[navane]

Originally Posted by NWguy

Our fraternity averaged 65-70 brothers when I was there, but it never felt crowded. The other two houses I considered joining during Rush were slightly bigger, and I took that into consideration.

I have a few questions pertaining to these very large sorority chapters.

1) Where does everyone sleep? Do the pledges sleep in one big room, or basement?

2) How do they feed everyone? That's a lot of food for 150+ women.

3) Are there weeknight curfews/lights out times?

The chapter I advise isn't huge by some people's standards; but, 200 members isn't something to sneeze at. Here's how we check out:

1) The house itself sleeps 32. The 6 executive board members are required to live in. The rest of the members put in for room picks every year and are selected to live-in the spring prior based on merit points. Pledges don't typically ever live-in as they don't join until fall semester, after room picks are done. If we happen to have a space open up, and no one wants to live-in, we offer the space to the new members. The members all get to choose who they want to room with - we don't care about class standing.


2) We have a professional chef and an assistant who prepare the lunches and dinners during the weekdays. These meals are for the 30 live-ins only and are served buffet style. Members are welcome to pop by the dining room during meal service hours to help themselves to a plate. Any members not living in are always welcome to eat at the house as well. The live-outs are allowed a certain number of free meals per week (I think 2 dinners and 3 lunches) as a part of their dues. Any more than that and they can pay a modest $3-$5/plate to eat in on extra days. On Monday nights, when we have our meetings, the entire 200+ chapter comes to dinner and it's an event! We squeeze all of the members into the dining room and tables set up in the living room. The chef, her assistant and 4-5 hashers serve the plates and they get it done! We have a commercial kitchen; but, it is not open to members to cook in (it gets locked up after dinner). We do have a fridge, toaster oven, microwave, covered salad bar, coffee pot, juice machine and bread and snack pantry available to the members 24/7. Like someone else mentioned, the members who know that they will miss a meal can sign up for a "late plate" and their dinner will be left for them in the community fridge.


3) Nope. The live-in members are free to come and go as they please. The only "time certain" type of thing is that the House Director (House Mom) will go around to lock all exterior doors and set the house alarm before going to bed. Once the alarm is set, the members can come and go freely though one door only.

[NWguy]

Not only is it a lot of meals, but the purchase and delivery of the food, the space to put all of it, and the waste...boggles my mind.

We had a similar meal system, a kitchen staff that prepared lunch and dinner on the weekdays, and then we were on our own for the weekend. Most of the time we ordered pizza, but we were just a few blocks from a major street that had a grocery store and restaurants. Once a month, usually at the end, our kitchen staff would make a big sheet cake for everyone who had birthdays that month. They also cooked special meals for Initiation and a Graduation/Farewell reception for our seniors. We would always get a turkey dinner before Thanksgiving break, too.

The city I went to college at now has both a recycling and compost law, which I'm sure includes Greek Row. You have to separate all the recycled goods and compost from garbage, or you'll be fined. Back when I was in school, everything went into one garbage dumpster.

As for curfews, our house didn't have any either, but we were advised to keep the noise level down past 10pm on weeknights.

[Tom Earp]

I was suprised by now my chapter have @ 50 members which is the norm in my school. P S US Kansas.That is what I like about the size, we know ALL of our members.

That is why I love smaller schools where we are a name and not a number!

But, that is just me and Navane always gives great advice as usual, she has been there!

[ZTAngel]

I came from a large chapter. There were close to 80 women in my pledge class and around 250 women in the chapter. Looking back at my college years, I think a smaller chapter probably would've been a better experience for me. Here are the pros and cons of a big chapter. This is based on my personal opinions and experience.

Pros

• Always someone from your chapter in one of your classes.
• Socials were a blast.
• You never had a problem filling leaderships positions or committees.
• Participation in philanthropy events, socials, sisterhood events, etc. was never an issue.

Cons

• It was impossible to know or be friends with every girl in your sorority. Because of this, cliques were rampant and very closed-off. For someone more introverted and shy like me, it would break me and caused me to almost drop more than a handful of times. Ever feel completely alone in a room full of people? Yeah....there's that....and it sucked.
• You had to fight for a leadership position or committee spot since there were many other girls who would fight you tooth-and-nail for that role.
• Sorority recruitment "practices" were a week long process plus two summer meetings. It's difficult to corral 250 women and get them all to learn the same process, songs, entrances, exits, do and donts of rushing, etc. These practices started early in the morning and went to the wee hours with rush directly following. Everyone always ended up sick because they were so worn out.
• Too many chiefs, not enough Indians. Especially in a chapter that was as strong as mine. Every girl had a leadership role of some sort in high school. Every girl had a strong opinion. Every girl was used to having her leadership skills appreciated, and her opinions known. Imagine that times 250 women. It was a recipe for disaster, and it caused some major drama at times.
• We built an addition to our house while I was in college to accommodate our chapter. Our chapter room couldn't fit all of us. We were sitting two to a seat or on the floors during chapter. By the time our new chapter room came along, we had somewhat outgrown it (although not to the extent of our previous room). We all had to cuddle with each other during chapter. I imagine that with the addition of several sororities since my time there that pledge class sizes have been reduced leading to smaller chapter sizes. My guess is that the chapter room probably feels more comfortable now than when I was there.

[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.

[NWguy]

250? That's the size of a church congregation. You must've had to use a microphone for your chapter meetings.

Even in a fraternity chapter of about 70, it was a challenge to get to know everyone. As is typical, I assume, the upperclassmen hung out together a lot, but they never excluded anyone from hanging out with them; it was just hard to break into that group at the beginning.

We had a "first open seat" system for chapter meetings, where upon entering the chapter room we were encouraged to sit at the first available seat, rather than sitting next to the same guys all the time. There was never any real drama that I remember, except once when a brother borrowed someone else's car and wrecked it (at a Jack n' the Box drive-thru).

[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?