New Greek Village's Impact on Current Housing

As current Greeks debate about the future of a new Greek Village area on north campus, we need to look at how it will affect Greek chapters that live in actual mansion/houses and those that do own their own property.

The plans for the new Greek village houses would provide modern furnishings, work/study area, network-connected with wireless, and would offer different sizes depending on the membership of the chapter. Each house would also be designed individually. This would avoid any problems with the village becoming just a block of identical residence halls.

Even though this would greatly help those chapters that do not live in a house (i.e. certain floors of a residence hall) or live in University-style houses (the old res halls at the top and bottom of the hill on south side), there ought to be some concern among the chapters that do live in a house that is either owned or leased from the University. Along Bellflower Road, Phi Mu, Alpha Chi Omega, Zeta Beta Tau live in houses that are owned by the University. [Corrected] For these houses, Phi Mu and Alpha Chi Omega are owned by the University. ZBT is owned by the Lambda foundation; and the former FIJI house is owned by the Xi Deuteron Building Association. In the Magnolia Area, we have Theta Chi, Delta Tau Delta, Alpha Phi, and Phi Kappa Theta. The Alpha Phi house is owned by the University. Theta Chi, Delta Tau Delta, and Phi Kappa Theta own their respective houses, but the land underneath Theta Chi and the Delts are leased from the University.

In any case, these chapters above actually live in a "house." While it is true that a new Case Greek village will bring a sense of getting all the chapters together and to encourage a sense of spirit and brother/sisterhood, the ones that do have houses have made quite an individual footprint on their current location on campus. Should they be "encouraged" to move to the new Village?

For my own personal view, it is best to establish a student population around a specific area, namely the north side, but we should not further segment the undergraduate population. Ideally, the plan would create a three dimensional picture. On one end are all the first-years living in the current residence halls (with a few staying on south side due to higher than expected rate of enrollment), the second area is the NRV housing the upperclass students, and the third are all the Greeks. Yes, there is some mixture of different classes, but we should not explicitly divide them up this way.

For one thing, we are pushing mostly all campus activities to north side because that is where all the students are. Of course, there are events being held at Thwing, Emerson, and at Fribley/Carlton, but for student groups, they have to arrange an event where they can get the most turnout. Moving all the Greek chapters to one area would guarantee that most social events would be held on one end of the campus. The other end result is a more regulated social environment because the University would own the houses and all events will be even more strictly controlled. Who knows if the University decides to have a RA live in each Greek house.

Also, why should they round up everyone into one area? Since we know that the South side residence halls would continue to be used, and that they are in the process of being renovated, why can't we re-develop the bottom and top of the hill areas? We should tear them down and build house-style buildings for the South side chapters and chapters that do not have a house. In addition, Fribley and Carlton Commons should be renovated. We also understand that South side would house both professional and graduate students. The South residential village could become quite a place for social and cultural events. This is one great opportunity to take advantage of.

A lot of things are changing on campus. The new logo, the new buildings, a larger student body, and a different learning environment. But if we are to change our living style, let's choose to expand and mix instead of dividing and setting everyone apart. We should know that besides the more than 4,000 undergrads, there are thousands of grads and professional students too. Let's take this opportunity to build the new Greek village as a step to re-develop the rest of the housing areas.