While the upcoming room draw promises to leave many students waitlisted for on-campus housing, some Greek houses are struggling to fill their quotas, leaving room space unoccupied. Greek organizations were required to submit rosters for Summer and Fall term by April 19, according to Gretchen Gingo, associate director of housing, to ensure full Greek houses in upcoming terms.
Meeting the minimum occupancy requirement set by the Office of Residential Life appears to be relatively easy for most houses; however, it has proved problematic for a few organizations.
This past summer, Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority was forced to close down its house after failing to meet the occupancy requirement and has persistently had trouble meeting housing requirements during subsequent terms.
"What happened last year is that all or most of the '06s had signed leases for off-campus summer housing as far back as the fall term," Kappa president Katie Fahey '06 said. "We ended up having only ten people signed up when we needed 11 -- it was unfortunate."
Shutting a house down for the term is the most serious sanction ORL can impose for failure to meet housing requirements; other sanctions include barring members of the organization from room draw until the house submits a roster and withholding College-billed checks.
Fahey is set to implement a rule that would compel all members to agree to live in the house for a designated amount of time.
"As of next fall we're making it a requirement that all members have to commit at least two terms to living in the house, so hopefully we won't run into any more nasty housing situations," Fahey said.
Epsilon Kappa Theta sorority already has a similar rule in place: two girls were required to live in the house in order to make up capacity this term after failing to recruit enough volunteers to live in the house.
"We have the ability to pull people into the house if not enough people volunteer -- it's in our constitution," Theta houseman Meredith Raucher '06 said. "This term, we had 21 girls volunteer to live in the house, but we needed 23, so two girls were pulled in."
Although many organizations have stipulations requiring all members to help meet occupancy levels, enacting them is rarely necessary.
"When I blitz out to the members when housing time rolls around, I always try to mention something about how wonderful living in [Tri-Delt] is and that usually brings in enough residents," Tri-Delt houseman Christina Jimenez '06 said.
The disparities between the ability of houses to fill their housing quotas are a result of several factors, including the number of members, location and the condition of the house.
"An organization's ability to fill the house relies heavily on two factors," Gingo said, "the strength of the organization and the physical plant of the house."
It is also considerably easier for organizations in privately owned houses to fill their rooms. The majority of fraternities and coed organizations, with the exception of Alpha Chi Alpha and Chi Heorot, are non-college owned houses and are therefore able to take on boarders to meet minimum occupancy levels.
"We have allowed boarders to live in [Bones Gate], especially in past summers when it was difficult to find that many people to live here," Brandon Carballo '07 said.
Even when houses are able to present adequate rosters, the process of determining which members can live in the house can be fraught with complications.
"When certain deadlines don't coincide with the CFS deadlines, like the UGA notification date which was days after the CFS rosters were due, it makes it more difficult," Jimenez said.
However, houses seem to have successfully met ORL requirements for this year.
"The housing coordinators for the organizations have really stepped up and things are looking positive for most organizations at this point," Gingo said.
