<p>arent there two other frat houses that might become available due to hazing violations?</p>
<p>They are being built a new house on Frank Parsons, next to Kappa. The frat houses aren't open for this for several reasons. First because I think the school wants to keep all the srats on srat row, and secondly any frat kicked off campus comes back four years later (when the last intitiated pledge class graduates), so they'd have to keep moving house to house.</p>
<p>The school would never stick a sorority in between all the fraternities. And like beautyistruth said, fraternities that get kicked off usually come back in about 4-5 years, just about all fraternities at W&L have too rich a history to stay kicked off (in some cases to be kicked off, which is why I wouldn't jump the gun on two more getting the boot musictoad)</p>
<p>At USC, the frats and srats are located right next door to one another...</p>
<p>Too bad W&L didn't do this---maybe that would've improved their current problem with Gender Relations.</p>
<p>My campus had the sororities all in a row on one side of campus and the fraternity quadrangle on the other side. All of it was university-owned housing but not even 1/10th as gorgeous as you lucky Generals. Believe me, we Greek women did not want to live near a bunch of noisy guys. Visit them, yes! Just not live near them.</p>
<p>Minor clarification: it was technically Alpha Phi that was selected in spring 2005 for expansion. They later decided they didn't want to come to campus without a house, so the baton was passed to AXO, who at first claimed they would come without a house. Obviously, they never did. Rather than go to the third choice (three groups presented in 2005 - the third was actually ADPi), they waited until a housing agreement had been established with the university so the 6th house would be guaranteed.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that Alpha Phi and AXO wimped out. Rather, I would say that the Panhellenic leadership at W&L - NOT students, but the Panhellenic advisor at that time - somewhat misled the groups about the house construction. She told them they would get a house soon, even though at that point no effort had been made to secure such an agreement with the university. It was later proposed by Panhellenic as part of the strategic plan and approved.</p>
<p>Just wanted to clarify on this account.</p>
<p>I would be extremely interested to hear from current students about ADPi's PR efforts on campus this fall.</p>
<p>A final note on sororities, specifically on Tri-Delt, is that many many people mistakenly/ignorantly gossiped that Tri-Delt had been "promised" the sixth spot at W&L throughout my time at W&L (indeed, up until the time of the ill-fated extension presentations my senior year). For whatever reason, when they drew up the plans for the houses in the late 90s, they also designed the sixth house - and labeled it "Delta Delta Delta." Interesting stuff. I know there were pictures of the plans in my sorority's chapter histories from that time period, and I assume it would be in the other sororities' records as well. It's possible that there was an agreement made with Tri-Delt at the time that KD was selected for expansion that Tri-Delt would follow in two or three years given the overall success of KD's colonization and the sorority system as a whole (which might also explain the rumors about Tri-Delt from my era at W&L). We've seen this happen at several universities recently - NC State and Alabama both come to mind. The idea is that if reduction in chapter size is really needed, it's good to have two groups come on pretty close to one another, because that way no one is "the new kid on the block." But I have no idea about that really - just my speculation. It would pan out, though, because KD's colonization greatly changed the W&L sorority system in several ways, and then there was the focus on planning and building the houses, and expansion just never happened or wasn't seen to be needed until the mid-2000s again. I'd be interested to hear what other groups presented during the extension period when KD was selected. </p>
<p>I'd really like to write a history of the W&L sorority system some day.</p>
<p>On another note, are we entirely sure that every fraternity will always come back in 4-5 years? When I was a freshman, there was still talk of Delta Tau Delta possibly coming back, and there was even a website run by alums at that time promising recolonization. Obviously that never happened. We have seen it happen now with two fraternities (SigEp and Beta) that they have recolonized in 4-5 years. I am pretty sure it will happen with Kappa Sig too. But are we so sure this would be the case for EVERY group? I'm not so sure. I agree with Dima that certain groups are "protected" by their status even from being kicked off. But I'm not so sure that the prospect of recolonization wouldn't be difficult for some groups, were they to be kicked off.</p>
<p>I suppose you could attribute the fall of DTD to the fact that the increasing number of women at the school decreased the demand for fraternities throughout the 90s, and the size of pledge classes shrunk. I think it was coeducation that decisively killed ZBT in the 80s, as well - that and the fact that Jewish enrollment at that time was declining and Jews could then get into many other fraternities.</p>
<p>On another interesting note, in 1991 a national sorority tried to expand at W&L and failed. They conducted recruitment after formal recruitment (rather than during) and had poor results. Thus, in 1992, Pi Beta Phi colonized during formal recruitment. </p>
<p>That NPC is still listed on W&L's alumni database as a Greek affiliation option, even though presumably no W&L women were ever initiated into that group.</p>
<p>That is a lot of wonderful information - you should write a book about the sorority history! My son is looking at W&L quite seriously, and reading this whole thread brought up a couple of questions. What is the gender relation issue that WL2011 mentioned? Additionally, is there a North/South relation problem? We have heard this from some folks from New England. I find it hard to believe, but need to ask.</p>
<p>Hi bibbist.</p>
<p>As far as gender relations, I <em>believe</em> some posters were referring to some stupid drama from the campus newspapers last spring. Basically, a sexist, gossip-column type thing in one of the schools papers (the one that consistently sucks, in my opinion). There was also some other kind of drama-filled email circulating last year spreading rumors about women on campus.</p>
<p>I know a bit more about this than I'm letting on, but honestly I find the whole saga disgusting and don't want to drag it out. At the same time, I'm not one to hide the fact that I think W&L students can be seriously petty and gossipy. After four full years there it sometimes feels like a giant, overdramatic high school. I know that some W&L students here probably would like to squelch any discussion of the drama of spring 08... but oh well.</p>
<p>As far as gender relations goes, I think W&L has some serious problems (or did when I was there, 2001-2005) with relations between the genders... in my personal opinion mostly because the social life IS so focused around the fraternity houses, eg, drinking. Not that the drinking at W&L is more than any other school - but because fraternities so completely dominate the social scene, I believe it leads to a lack of other options and poor decision making (I know I had my fair share of extremely poor decisions!). I am also frankly not a fan of the system wherein sophomores immediately move into gender-segregated housing situations, eg Greek houses. I think it would be great if there was another year or even two of co-ed dorm living (some of my favorite memories of W&L!!! :) ) and then juniors or seniors lived in the Greek houses. I know most students LOATHE this idea but I am all for a four-year living requirement.</p>
<p>I guess just to clarify all this a bit, I had a happy freshman year at W&L for the most part, and then was pretty much miserable my last three years there. The major reason for that being that at the beginning of my sophomore year I was sexually assaulted and then became involved in a two-year abusive relationship. So I do have really strong views about gender relations at W&L. But I also helped chair a group called the Sexual Assault Task Force when I was a senior, which eventually evolved into the Gender Relations Committee- I have no idea if that group is still active. But we examined the issue of sexual assault on campus and looked at some disturbing survey results that had come up (for example a large percentage of women, much larger than at other peer institutions, reported experiencing unwanted touching during the course of the past year - I think the survey was from spring 2004 and published in fall 2004) and tried to think of some proactive ways to remedy the situation and especially to draw in fraternity men as stakeholders and leaders in the progress.</p>
<p>I know that's probably more than you wanted to know. heh.</p>
<p>As far as North-South relations, I don't see that as a major issue. Especially not for women. There are some fraternities that clearly skew to northern membership and some that skew to southern membership. And I guess it goes without saying that the southern ones are generally considered more elite. But I don't think there's any major ire or ill-will between people because of that. At all. I think that one's definitely a straw horse.</p>
<p>Just my 02. I do have really strong opinions on W&L, and a lot of them are honestly not positive. If I had it to do over again, I'm not sure I'd go there... but I think I am definitely the exception to the rule. Most of my college friends idolize W&L.</p>
<p>FYI, Gender Relations Committee is still going strong, and proposing some fun and exciting things for this year. One of my favorites is a sort of lunch mixer between frats and srats.</p>
<p>Oh, fun. Glad to see the Gender Relations Committee is still around! Frat/srat lunch mixers were something we were discussing even in '05, I think... or the idea of non-alcoholic/daytime mixers more generally. :)</p>
<p>Has the W&L board actually approved funding for the new sorority? When I last checked (last school year), funding had not been approved. Is there a signed construction contract? Is there a definite start date for construction?</p>