Is it better to be on or off campus?
By Sarah Cranley
Wildcat Weekly
posted September 09, 2004
A student who is not Greek at UK may think that all of the fraternity houses are in one central location on campus. However, this preconceived notion is proven to be incorrect.
The University of Kentucky does have fraternity houses located both on and off campus. There are many advantages and disadvantages dealing with the location of the Greek houses.
A clear comparison is the Sigma Chi house verses the Sigma Pi house. Both are strong fraternities at the University of Kentucky.
The Sigma Chi house is conveniently sandwiched between the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority house and the Delta Gamma sorority house on campus.
“Living on campus allows me to sleep in later because I have less than a five minute walk to class,” said Will Nash, an active member of Sigma Chi. The Sigma Chi house is also neighboring to the William T. Young Library, and not far from the Johnson Center.
“Pretty much everyone loves there freshmen year dorm experience. Living in a fraternity house on campus is basically the same concept, but your living with 40 of your closets friends, minus the RA. You are surrounded by sorority houses and you get your own parking pass,” said Chris Eseley, an active member of Sigma Chi.
The placement of the Sigma Chi house is also a positive factor in the recruitment process. The house is located in a prime location as far as distance from the dorms and in proximity with the other Greek houses. It makes there house easy to find for the potential new members because they are located on campus.
There are many advantages to living on campus; however, there are some disadvantages. Due to the fact that UK is a dry campus, there is absolutely no drinking on campus.
For an on campus fraternity house it can be annoying to the members who are of the legal drinking age.
“Living on campus does have some minor disadvantages. The University is a lot less lenient for on campus houses, however, Sigma Chi always finds a way to have fun,” said Aaron Metten, an active member of Sigma Chi.
Sigma Pi is an off campus fraternity house. “There are advantages to living off campus; first of all we have a lot more privacy. There are less fights and conflicts between the other fraternities because we are not constantly butting heads with the other fraternities that are all clumped together,” Said Nick Castlen, an active member of Sigma Pi.
By being located off campus Sigma Pi has more individual freedom dealing with house issues.
“I feel like one of the major advantages of living off campus is that we are able to add on things to improve the quality of our house without going through the University. It makes the process go quicker when you can do things on your own,” said Raymond Smith, an active member of Sigma Pi.
One disadvantage by being located off campus deals with Rush week. The active members have to transport the potential new members to their house off campus. The Sigma Pi house is not located within the main Greek area.
“Overall, I think there are more advantages to living off campus. Although if I had to name a couple disadvantages I would say being far away from the library, the Johnson Center, and not to mention far from all the sorority houses can be annoying,” said Dave Woolley, an active member of Sigma Pi.
Both Sigma Chi and Sigma Pi have various positive and negative outlooks about their houses being on campus or off campus.
On the quality of their other hand, the location of their fraternity houses does not effect the brotherhood.
This article was originally posted on September 09, 2004
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