Greek Chapters without houses can face some hardships that come without that luxury.
Junior Jeff Hodson, President of Kappa Sigma and a math and philosophy major at the University of Oregon, was drawn to his chapter for reasons beyond a house.
“It’s a diverse group of guys that connect on more important levels. They’re a good group of guys and I love hanging out with them,” he said.
Kappa Sigma is just one of the UO fraternity chapters without a communal place to live. For now, they’re keeping their eyes open for a house, but they recognize that it’s no easy process.
“It’s on our radar to get a house, but we’ve only been back on campus for five years now. It takes time and work and membership,” Hodson said. “We need alumni, university and FSL support to get that going and it’s time consuming.”
Kappa Sigma is not the only fraternity on campus without a house. Sigma Nu is still working on it after four years of officially rechartered at the UO.
For Sophomore Andrew Ashby, a member of Sigma Nu and UO architecture major, not having a house has some serious downsides. Regardless, the brothers make due as best they can.
“Fraternity houses are a centralized hub that make it easy to connect and find other brothers,” Ashby said. “On the other hand, we have five live outs within three blocks of each other so that gives us a nice variety of new people to hang out with and makes it incredibly easy to see different groups.”
One of the biggest downsides for transient fraternities is trying to find a communal gathering place. Kappa Sigma has tried a couple of different solutions to that problem, including leasing a small meeting space that is now a restaurant on the corner of 13th and Patterson.
“We had a previous lease, but we decided that it was easier to just meet in Mackenzie for chapter,” Hodson said. “Now we use that money for philanthropy stuff and social events.”
Kappa Alpha Theta, a sorority on campus that was just re-charted a few years ago also, finally got a house this year. Mackenzie Verrey, the chapter president, is thrilled to see members with a central place to meet.
“A chapter house is a home away from home for its members and is a place for everyone to come together,” she said. “Our chapter was close before we had a house, but having one now definitely facilitates sisterhood.”
Fraternities in the process of finding a house do their best to focus on the immaterial benefits of Fraternity and Sorority life in the meantime.
“For us, dues are lower without a house and we have live outs that we can still have official or unofficial events,” Hodson said. “Sometimes it’s hard to manage details, but despite not having a central location, we do a good job of making sure we hangout and do things 3 or 4 times a week which I think really reflects the quality of our members.”
For many, having a house is of little consequence when they already have the community that would make the building feel like home.
“When I was rushing, I didn’t even take into account that we didn’t have a house. I know most of the brothers don’t mind either because we’re not there for a house, we’re there for the core values that Sigma Nu has to offer,” Ashby said.