smittysahoot said

Greek Housing will happen by 2012. My understanding is that the Greek Constituency group of the FAU NAA, and Greek Life, a pushing plans through soon for a Greek Village. The land that was earmarked years ago is still earmarked for Greek Housing.

Teambeer? Any additional input?

And at the Greek Alumni Networking Mixer on Thursday, Board of Trustee Armand Grossman told the crowd that it will happen. And when he says something…he means it.

Yes, Greek Housing will happen, but we're still a few years away. I know I know, I've been hearing the same story since I was an undergrad too! But the situation now is that we've got a dedicated, Greek Advisor at FAU who's planning on sticking around for a while and will be able to get this project off the ground. One of the issues has always been the lack of consistency with Greek Advisors, we'd get a new one every year or two, so whatever long term projects they worked on would be derailed as soon as they left. The chapters themselves aren't organized enough to put on a campaign on their own and there is a serious lack of alumni support for the chapters on campus for the most part. The good news is that Ryan seems to be in it for the long haul. My guess is that they'll build 4 to start as I can only imagine 2 sororities and 2 fraternities to be even close to having the numbers, and leadership necessary to manage a house.

Next spring, the Greek Housing Committee will begin traveling to 3 universities to assess their housing and then we'll start to get an idea of what to expect. From what I know now, they'll be university owned, chapter managed, so if a chapter defaults on their lease, the university will fill those rooms with undergrads. They'll be small, sleeping 12-15 students in my assessment, with more focus on common areas like a meeting space, alumni room, gym, learning center, etc. Your current images of "frat houses" will not be fulfilled, they will be educational communities.

TeamBeer said

Yes, Greek Housing will happen, but we're still a few years away. I know I know, I've been hearing the same story since I was an undergrad too! But the situation now is that we've got a dedicated, Greek Advisor at FAU who's planning on sticking around for a while and will be able to get this project off the ground. One of the issues has always been the lack of consistency with Greek Advisors, we'd get a new one every year or two, so whatever long term projects they worked on would be derailed as soon as they left. The chapters themselves aren't organized enough to put on a campaign on their own and there is a serious lack of alumni support for the chapters on campus for the most part. The good news is that Ryan seems to be in it for the long haul. My guess is that they'll build 4 to start as I can only imagine 2 sororities and 2 fraternities to be even close to having the numbers, and leadership necessary to manage a house.

Next spring, the Greek Housing Committee will begin traveling to 3 universities to assess their housing and then we'll start to get an idea of what to expect. From what I know now, they'll be university owned, chapter managed, so if a chapter defaults on their lease, the university will fill those rooms with undergrads. They'll be small, sleeping 12-15 students in my assessment, with more focus on common areas like a meeting space, alumni room, gym, learning center, etc. Your current images of "frat houses" will not be fulfilled, they will be educational communities.

Thanks TeamBeer.

That projection also goes along with the 10-page report I did on the status of Greek Housing three years ago.

Then, and probably still now, the university believes (or wants to believe) that chapters can fill 30-50 beds every semester with punctual rent payments from students. However, with the instability of the Greek chapters (other than two that are consistently large), chapters can literally come and go from semester to semester.

And if you add in that the national chapter can pull their local charter, and any other violation of the Student Code of Conduct while in letters can kick the chapter off campus, we don't have enough Greek chapters, who all have over 50 members, to build seven "houses" with 50+ beds.

I do believe we should have at least 20 beds in each house, though. Even if we need "undergrads" to fill those spots, 20 beds could be filled by athletes, Konbit Kreyol, BSU, ALAS, etc. and other student groups that have build strong affinities with each other.

If the Greek council wants me to take pictures of the houses at UT-Austin and Rutgers, let me know.

TeamBeer said

Next spring, the Greek Housing Committee will begin traveling to 3 universities to assess their housing and then we'll start to get an idea of what to expect. From what I know now, they'll be university owned, chapter managed, so if a chapter defaults on their lease, the university will fill those rooms with undergrads. They'll be small, sleeping 12-15 students in my assessment, with more focus on common areas like a meeting space, alumni room, gym, learning center, etc. Your current images of "frat houses" will not be fulfilled, they will be educational communities.

I know they'll be looking at the UM and USF models.

12-15 is pretty damn small. Really damn small.

But they'll be expandable out to 50-100 people, right?

owlcountry said

12-15 is pretty damn small. Really damn small.

But they'll be expandable out to 50-100 people, right?

50 - 100 is pretty damn big. LOL.


Can we settle with 20-25?

Again, they will be university owned, so if three Greek organizations all get thrown off campus in one semester, they'll need to fill
12-15 model: 36 - 45 beds
suggested 20-25 model: 60-75 beds
suggested 50-100 model: 150 - 300 beds

They won't be able to fill even the 60-75.

By the time we get Greek housing (in about four or five years) we'll have all the dorms from Innovation Village built and we might not have a demand for housing anymore. Who knows I guess!

smittysahoot said

owlcountry said

12-15 is pretty damn small. Really damn small.

But they'll be expandable out to 50-100 people, right?

50 - 100 is pretty damn big. LOL.

Can we settle with 20-25?

Yeah, sorry, I was thinking about how Algonquin is a pretty small building and houses about 90 people. Then again it doesn't have the other amenities (living room, gym, library, etc) typical of Greek housing, all of which have to be considered into the dimensions of the architectural design/land plot.

So yeah, sleep 12-15 is a good start. I just hope that they're designed so additional rooms can be added on in the future because FAU 2020 is likely going to need many more rooms than FAU 2010.

One thing though: he said sleeps 12-15 students and you said "12-15 model: 36 - 45 beds"… were you thinking 12-15 rooms with 2-3 beds per room?

owlcountry said

One thing though: he said sleeps 12-15 students and you said "12-15 model: 36 - 45 beds"… were you thinking 12-15 rooms with 2-3 beds per room?

Those numbers are a hypethetical if three organizations lose their houses for one reason or another in one semester. FAU would be stuck having to fill 36-45 beds, which is easier than 50-100 if they had 20-30-50 beds in each house.

you really only expect 25% of the chapter to live in the house, so do the math with the organizations on campus. The largest to my knowledge is D Phi E sorority at nearly 100 members which dwarfs any of the fraternities on campus by 40+ members at best. But the catch here is D Phi E just hit 100, it won't last, mega chapters on a campus the size of FAU don't make sense-there will be more sororities and fraternities on campus if the interest in greek life continues to grow. Nonetheless, best case scenerio for a chapter of that size is to comfortably house 25 members, which is a 13 bedroom house (two beds per room and one presidents room).

Take a 60 man chapter, 15 members living in the house, 20 at most. It's too risky to go any larger. When a chapter's goals become recruiting enough members to fill their house, they're in trouble…

TeamBeer said

you really only expect 25% of the chapter to live in the house, so do the math with the organizations on campus. The largest to my knowledge is D Phi E sorority at nearly 100 members which dwarfs any of the fraternities on campus by 40+ members at best. But the catch here is D Phi E just hit 100, it won't last, mega chapters on a campus the size of FAU don't make sense-there will be more sororities and fraternities on campus if the interest in greek life continues to grow. Nonetheless, best case scenerio for a chapter of that size is to comfortably house 25 members, which is a 13 bedroom house (two beds per room and one presidents room).

Take a 60 man chapter, 15 members living in the house, 20 at most. It's too risky to go any larger. When a chapter's goals become recruiting enough members to fill their house, they're in trouble…

I like the thought process there…

TeamBeer said

you really only expect 25% of the chapter to live in the house, so do the math with the organizations on campus. The largest to my knowledge is D Phi E sorority at nearly 100 members which dwarfs any of the fraternities on campus by 40+ members at best. But the catch here is D Phi E just hit 100, it won't last, mega chapters on a campus the size of FAU don't make sense-there will be more sororities and fraternities on campus if the interest in greek life continues to grow. Nonetheless, best case scenerio for a chapter of that size is to comfortably house 25 members, which is a 13 bedroom house (two beds per room and one presidents room).

Take a 60 man chapter, 15 members living in the house, 20 at most. It's too risky to go any larger. When a chapter's goals become recruiting enough members to fill their house, they're in trouble…

I see your thought process, but based on that way of thinking wouldnt we build a 15,000 seat football stadium?  I think Greek Housing and the Football stadium both go by the same motto…."if you build it they will come".

walty12 said

I see your thought process, but based on that way of thinking wouldnt we build a 15,000 seat football stadium?  I think Greek Housing and the Football stadium both go by the same motto…."if you build it they will come".

Think of it this way…

This may not be politically correct, but I'm going to say it anyway. I don't know how many Greek organizations there are on campus, but in theory, there's only about seven that can probably fill a house (in numbers and in $$) - Sig Ep, Pike, DPhiE, AZD, Theta Phi, and the other two slots in the "seven" will be a toss up between Sammy, ATO and AEPi. And although all of their numbers have been increasing, I can tell you that AEPi is having some financial trouble, and I'm sure Sammy and ATO are experiencing some of the same concerns. Maybe not.

So if you build exactly seven houses (again, I don't know how many they are building, but let's go with seven for the sake of conversation), and seven organizations fill it,  that's great! But then what if, again for example, SigEp gets booted off campus for hazing, or getting in a brawl, or losing their national charter. Now, there's an empty house. Who fills it?….

That's why we need to build Greek housing small to start so if a scenario happens, we have groups of 15-20 students that can fill those houses.

The university is being conservative here, and I like it.