A big fat Greek hope: Greek Life housing a no-go for fall

Last Fall, the Office of Residence Life proposed the initiative to turn a campus hall into an entirely Greek Life residence. Greek Council and Residence Life held meetings and discussed ideas that would turn Lapsley Lane into “college row,” with fraternity and sorority letters nailed above the doors of the campus houses. But feasibly, Ashwood—with eight floors to match the number of Greek organizations recognized by St. Joe’s last semester—became the center of discussion. And just as quickly as the discussion began, it ended.

According to Chris Heasley, associate director of Residence Life, a lack of student interest determined by the sparsely attended meetings led Residence Life to abandon the idea.

“‘Let’s dream, what would this look like?’” Heasley asked members of the Greek Council who attended the Thursday night meetings. According to Heasley, five students attended the first meeting, two attended the second, and the third left him standing in an empty room.

“We just said it looks like the interest is very little to none. We don’t know why there is a lack of interest,” Heasley said. “Maybe it’s the timing, maybe they felt like they didn’t have enough time to make good decisions. Maybe they felt like it put to much pressure on upperclassmen participating on campus and they really didn’t want to. We really have no idea of knowing why the interest seems so low, but I just couldn’t get students to show up.”

Heasley said that the idea was part of an attempt to restore leadership opportunities to rising juniors and seniors ousted by incoming freshman and rising sophomores and who are obliged to live in off-campus housing. 

“When a majority of juniors and seniors live off campus you lose a really great leadership opportunity for those students to continue to mentor and guide and mold the youngerstudents who are in residence,” Heasley said.

After speaking with Jacquelyn Rossetter, assistant director of Greek Life, Heasley said that a group had seemingly reported interest and was willing to begin a pilot program. Heasley has yet to hear from that group.

Now, four months later, students have reported strong interests to see the plan carried out. Cait McCrosson, ’11, a co-president of the Greek Council while the plans were being discussed last November, said that she had attended all of the meetings and that the idea was favorable to her and upperclassmen looking to remain together after their sophomore year.

“I am a junior and I live on campus now and I would love to live on a Greek floor, but that isn’t an option at St. Joe’s,” McCrosson said. “I think it would be great if that could be an option for people who want to live with their sisters. I feel like I never get to see them outside of sorority’s events so it kind of brings down the bonding. It was really hard to find somewhere that was safe and nice and clean, and all campus housing is safe and nice and clean so that was a big issue.”

Other students commented on the benefits of living on campus for upperclassmen involved in Greek Life. Ryan Murry, ’12, also a co-president of the Greek Council, said that the opportunity might bring fraternities together rather than maintaining rivalries.

“I thought it was a great idea. My fraternity has gone on retreats before and just experiencing all of us living together for one weekend was amazing, and the possibility of all of us being able to live together in one place for the entire year was even better,” Murry said. “As far as drawbacks, with any rivalries or if certain people in certain groups don’t get along with other people in certain groups, there would be easy access that people [could] get from one floor to another. That was one concern because we didn’t want people having access to floors that they didn’t belong on unless they were invited up.”

While McCrosson and Murry both expressed enthusiasm towards the idea, McCrosson said that the student sentiment after the meetings was contrary to her own. According to McCrosson, many underclassmen were also enthusiastic, but Greek Life presidents were wary of the responsibilities that came with the new housing.

“Most of the people that I talked to, younger people thought that it was great because freshmen and sophomores have to live on campus anyway,” McCrosson said. “We left the meeting not really saying much but as people drifted down the hall they were all very anti-campus housing. I don’t think the presidents wanted to be responsible if something were to happen there, all of the blame and the responsibility would fall on the presidents and that’s a lot of responsibility for one person to hold.”

According to McCrosson, the plan ultimately failed because of a lack of communication. Presidents kept their concerns to themselves and as a result, further discussion was disabled.

“I just don’t think it was explained well enough,” McCrosson said. “I think if the presidents had voiced their concerns then it could have gone further but it kind of just got halted in the second week it was discussed.”

Despite the concerns of the presidents of the various fraternities and sororities, Murry had a different idea in mind.

“It wasn’t going to be a place where parties would be held, it wasn’t going to turn into anything like that,” he said. “It was more to get Greek life in one area so that they could be on campus so that we could have official Greek housing. It was more of a gathering than a social aspect.”