Some colleges make this policy conditional on overall grade performance. For this reason, such houses may be subject to the rules of the host college, the national organization, or both.ĭue to the increase in widely publicized alcohol-related deaths on college campuses, many national organizations and host colleges have implemented dry housing policies in which the consumption and possession of alcohol are prohibited on house property. Other, larger fraternities or sororities may have more than one house to accommodate all of its members.Īt many colleges, Greek houses are placed on the same street which is traditionally referred to as 'Greek Row.' Policies įraternity and sorority houses are typically owned either by a corporation of alumni, the sponsoring national organization, or the host college. In some fraternities or sororities, only the representatives live in the houses while in others the entire fraternity or sorority may live in the house. The walls of the house may be decorated with pictures of past chapter events, awards, and trophies, decorative (or historic) paddles, or composite photos of members from past years. Fraternities and sororities will also often maintain a chapter room, to which only initiates may ever be admitted and even whose existence may be kept secret. There is usually a lounge of some sort, access to which is often restricted to fully initiated members. The larger chapter houses generally have a large meeting room, a large dining room, a commercial kitchen, and a study room. They can usually be identified by large Greek letters or flags on the front of the house. Design įraternity and sorority houses range in size from three to twenty bedrooms or more. The number of houses owned by fraternities and sororities grew from 772 in 1915 to 928 in 1920. The Inter-Sorority Congress of 1913 saw the establishment of uniform rules and regulations regarding life in chapter houses. It was further recognized that, while fraternities having chapter houses did not raise academic performance, it did tend to keep it from falling as the chapters could not afford (financially) to have members leaving school and no longer paying for their rooms. The nature of this benefit varied between campuses as some houses were paid for entirely by alumni, some were rented, and some were built on land leased from the college. Many colleges eventually came to support fraternity and sorority housing as they allowed increased enrollment without the construction of costly dormitories. The first chapter house built by a women's fraternity was the one Alpha Phi erected at Syracuse University in 1886. This was in a day before colleges and universities had housing available.

Įarly chapters of women's fraternities often rented houses where they could live together, usually with a chaperone. Alpha Tau Omega was then the first fraternity to own a house in the South when, in 1880, its chapter at The University of the South acquired one. The first fraternity house in the South was likely one rented by members of Beta Theta Pi at Hampden–Sydney College from at least 1856. The idea of substantial fraternity housing caught on quickly, but was accomplished with much greater ease in the North as southern college students had far less available money for construction. Lodges were often no more than rented rooms above stores or taverns. The lodges came first and were largely replaced by houses with living accommodations. įraternity chapter housing initially existed in two forms: lodges that served as meeting rooms and houses that had boarding rooms. As fraternity membership was punishable by expulsion at many colleges at this time, the house was located deep in the woods. The first fraternity house seems to have been located at Alpha Epsilon of Chi Psi at the University of Michigan around 1846. Gamma Phi Beta house at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon History

Alpha sigma alpha houses