"Houses" v. "Chapters" / "Sororities"
 

I know it's generally considered incorrect to refer to chapters on a campus as "houses" (e.g., "the other houses are doing X..." or "what house did you join?") for a number of reasons, but try as panhell did during recruitment to have everyone call them "chapters," everyone at my alma marter still said "houses," if just due to force of habit. I think part of it is that all of the current chapters at my alma marter are housed and have been in their current houses for at least 60-ish years (some for more than 90 years), so ABC's house is very much "the ABC house," historically. That, and most, if not all, of the houses were built specifically to house their current chapter.

I'm curious as to what people say/said at other campuses, particularly those with at least some housed chapters, and if chapters are ever called "houses" even at schools without sorority houses (I don't really see why they would be, but who knows?).

We were not housed and were not called houses. We called ourselves chapters/ sororities. We did have a sorority dorm and each chapter had a wing that was decorated in our sorority colors, etc. We had a chapter room, kitchen, office, community bathroom and ritual closet. About 10 rooms housing two women each were on the halls on the bottom floors (housing AOII and Phi Mu.) I don't know if KD and Sigma Kappa had as many rooms.


When I was advising at Towson, I did hear people referring to the chapters as "houses" even though they were not housed in any way. I think this probably is related to UMD being nearby where all the chapters are housed. I could be wrong, though. Where is seeingstars?

We call them houses on my campus too. We have meeting houses, but there is no living space connected to them.

Interestingly, my cousin's chapter has a single room in a sorority "building" of sorts- and consequently, she refers to things as "in the room" when referring to things that go on in her chapter. That one has always rung odd to my ear.

Pitt has one sorority house (now, they used to have two), and the rest either have a floor in Amos Hall (the sorority dorm) or a suite in a nearby dorm.

When I was there, we called all of the sororities "chapters". Now, they call all of them "houses". I think the change may have started as wishful thinking, but since Pitt completely remodeled the sorority dorm, it's wonderful.

Hope they also got a new elevator! That thing was a death trap!

The Kappas still have their house, right?

Yup, that's the one. When Kappa Alpha Theta left campus, they gave up the house.

It's weird. One of my good friends was their "house mom" when she was in grad school - on the weekends that she needed to be out of town I usually stayed as the "designated security alarm setter and fire alarm puller."

Calling chapters "houses" is a pet peeve of mine. I don't know why it bothers me so much, but it does :) Just one of those things.

Because it is in effect saying that the physical structure is the most important part of the chapter, or that the chapter would not exist without the physical structure, neither of which are the truth.

We said:
"What fraternity is he in?"
"I had 3 chapters left on pref night."
"ASA is the best sorority."
"Let's go to the party at the Delta Chi house."

Most fraternities and sororities had off-campus houses with letters on them.

I thought it was being rented by the University. I think it's a multi-cultural house now. It was such a big deal to share a duplex with KKG, I can't see them giving it up completely - but it certainly could have been.

Does Kappa not fill it anymore? When I was there, Kappa members filled both sides of it.

That's how we used it also. I thought maybe I was overly sensitive to calling them "houses" because we were unhoused on my campus most of the time. But you're right, a house is a physical place, a chapter is a group of women/men.

ETA: We were even asked by some snobby girls from a different chapter of AGD whether we were "still homeless" when we ran into them while shopping (wearing letters). Yeah, homeless.. right.

Ohio State calls them houses. The non-housed school that I work with calls them houses or sororities. They never use chapter.