Added Fee for Housed Greeks at Northwestern (IL)

[exlurker]

Northwestern U. Greeks living in on-campus Greek housing will be charged a fee to help pay costs of such things as the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, security, and other services that they had not previously been billed for.

Article is at:

http://www.dailynorthwestern.com/vne.../444f116120484

Brief excerpts:

. . . The Office of Student Affairs will bill each of the approximately 900 students living in on-campus Greek houses a $255 service fee.

Because residents of Greek houses do not pay university room and board, their yearly cost of attendance does not include certain services still available to them.

“Student Affairs has determined that the cost should be shared by everyone who lives on campus, including students who live in fraternities and sororities,” said . . . the associate vice president and dean of student affairs.

Previously, residential hall room and board covered all salaries and benefits of the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, shuttle service, on-campus police services and sexual assault services . . . .

“Because students living in fraternities and sororities will be contributing, the money we save will stay in the residential hall and residential college system to compensate for rising costs” . . . .

[Tom Earp]

Knowing nothing about Northwestern, do Greek sown thier own Houses or owned by The School?

If owned by a House Corporatin, then, what right do they have to dun the Greeks?

Please explain better than they did in the article.

[exlurker]

Originally posted by Tom Earp
. . . do Greeks own thier own Houses or owned by The School? . . .

As I understand it, the NIC (or similar) fraternities and NPC sororities lease housing from Northwestern. The leases are contracts between the individual GLOs' house corporations and the university. I think the leases are for ten years and are renewable. The property and land belong to Northwestern.

Northwestern students, alumni/ae, advisors or house corporation members -- please correct me if I'm wrong; I know things change from time to time.

[AGDLynn]

I'm totally confused.

Except for the new fee, the Greeks get to live there for free???

Or does the GLOs divide the cost of the lease among house residents/the chapter?

Wow, WGa is building a new Greek village in 2008 and the members definitely are paying their own way!

[MysticCat]

Originally posted by exlurker
As I understand it, the NIC (or similar) fraternities and NPC sororities lease housing from Northwestern. The leases are contracts between the individual GLOs' house corporations and the university. I think the leases are for ten years and are renewable. The property and land belong to Northwestern.

Then it would seem like they are paying the University -- they're just doing by way of a lease (paid via chapter dues, I assume) rather than by direct fees.

Am I missing something?

[Rudey]

Originally posted by MysticCat81
Then it would seem like they are paying the University -- they're just doing by way of a lease (paid via chapter dues, I assume) rather than by direct fees.

Am I missing something?

I believe that's right. Although I question it for some of the older houses on campus. I can't imagine the university owning those houses.

-Rudey

[farbman]

Just to clarify things...

Houses are leased to the chapters in a variety of ways, but the general idea is that the house corp. is responsible for all utilities-gas, electric, etc. as well as maintenance and keeping the house up to code (fire sprinklers, etc.). The University doesn't charge rent to the house corp. nor does it explicitally provide any services to the house corp. for maintaining the building in any way.

This all being said, the lease structures are currently in flux, but they will remain 10-year committments between the University and the GLO.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

This makes sense, but I wonder about all the students who do not live on campus (and there are a LOT of them) who use these services as well. For example, you need a student ID to ride the NU shuttle, which you could have even as a grad student.

[RedRoseSAI]

Originally posted by farbman
This all being said, the lease structures are currently in flux

Indeed. It'll be interesting to see how things work out...

[FratAmerica]

What this should cause GLOs to do is really evaluate the services they are receiving. Is a 100 person chapter receiving ~$20,000 in services from the school?