September 13th, 2004

Filed under:
Mixed Bag
11 Comments »

Joining a Sorority

Over at Med School Blues, Jennifer writes about that very mid-century institution, the sorority:

as you can imagine, there were rooms with more estrogen and layered foundation than i ever thought possible. i arrived on campus at 10am-ish. (which, as a side note, i highly recommend. if you ever have a chance to be on campus early on a sunday morning — do it. it’s so different from any weekday afternoon.) anyways, there were about 150 of us recruits piled into a lecture theatre, given a basic idea of “what to expect”*, lunch, a recruitment coordinator, and a name tag.

When I was at UVic, there was a little-known, ad hoc fraternity/sorority-combination I belonged to called the Theatre department. There were late night chats, pillow fights and everybody slept with everybody.

Being Canadian, I don’t have a sense of the value of sororities and fraternities. I get the feeling that they carry a tremendous amount of clout in the States, and are an excellent way of starting your post-graduation life with a pre-fab business network.

Comments: 11 Responses so far

Dan
September 13th, 2004
11:03 am

To me frats were always the wrong way to find friends. I do know some people that got a lot out of fraternities and there are some great service oriented fraternities/sororities out there (Alpha Phi Omega being the first that jumps to mind).

Personally I was much happier not in the social situation of a fraternitiy. The secrecy and “initiation” and excessive partying seemed insincere at the university I went to in the U.S.A. Many of the social frats were also quite pig headed and bullyish when in groups in public, but again, that my just have been the school I was at.

Reply

Andrea
September 13th, 2004
3:06 pm

At SFU, the rumour was that frats and sororities were banned from campus. The only thing that would even come close is the Golden Key, but they emerged long after I graduated. Has anyone else heard whether SFU bans frats?

Reply

Sue
September 13th, 2004
3:13 pm

Not sure about SFU but I know that UVic has definitely banned frats. I’m not sure how long ago they made that decision, but there hasn’t been a frat/sorority presence on campus since at least 1988. (Not that I started then — that’s just when I realized there weren’t any frat houses on the local campus).

Reply

Chris
September 14th, 2004
8:31 am

At UBC, there’s a bunch of frat houses, but no sorority houses (though sororities do exist). Something about turning into dens of prostitution or something.

Interesting story – one of the frats that isn’t on campus is the engineering frat. Legend has it that in the 50′s or so, the engineering frat let a black guy in. All the other frats were not happy about this, so they had an all-frat meeting, where every frat had to send a representative to discuss this “issue”. The engineers sent the black guy to the meeting ;). Next thing you know, they were booted off campus.

Could be all lies, but I’ve heard that story from good friends of mine who are engineers.

Reply

Justin
September 15th, 2004
9:23 pm

UCC (Kamloops, BC) has one fraternity: Kappa Sigma Fraternity. If there are restrictions at SFU or UBC it’s a campus policy, not a provincial one.

The idea of a frat is pretty foreign to me, so I can’t really see the draw. Really – what’s the big deal about fraternaties?

Reply

`jen
September 16th, 2004
6:43 am

there is a new panhellenic (sorority) building on the UBC campus this year that houses all 8 chapters.

also, the alpha delta gamma was the first greek sorority (or frat in all of north america) to initiate a non-caucasian member in 1953.

Reply

`jen
September 16th, 2004
6:44 am

er, i meant the alpha delta gamma chapter *at UBC*.

Reply

Philippa Mangan
February 3rd, 2007
1:17 pm

Hi I am travelling with 14 law students from UCD Dublin for 3 months,June July and August and am seeking accommodation for the group in 1 of the frat houses.Any advise on how to rent or sub letI would welcome any help.?My email address is hobbits5@eircom.net
Many Thanks
Philippa Mangan

Reply

manuella
October 26th, 2007
6:26 pm

Does anyone know for sure whether SFU has sororities or not? Are they “banned”? I know for sure that UBC has some, like stated before.

Reply

K
January 4th, 2010
8:31 pm

I was wondering does UFV have any sororities?

Reply

Ashley
December 13th, 2010
5:05 pm

I was thinking about rushing at UBC to a sorority. Does anyone know about competitions between the different sororities and how the greek life is there? Like if 2 sororities hate eachother kind of thing. Im just really curious :)

Reply

Add a comment