Courtesy of University Archives
Members of the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority pose for a group photograph circa 1931. The chapter closed in 1969, and the house has since become the Lorax Manor co-operative living environment, located
As the University celebrates its 125th anniversary this year, fraternity and sorority members will celebrate more than 100 years of Greek history at the University, as well.
The Greek system began at the University with the opening of Sigma Nu fraternity in 1900. The fraternity still exists at its original location near 11th Avenue and Alder Street. Kappa Sigma, the second-oldest University fraternity, opened its chapter next door to Sigma Nu in 1904.
Not long after, Gamma Phi Beta, the first University sorority, was established in 1908. Members of the sorority still live in the original chapter house on Hilyard Street today.
The Greek system grew quickly. By 1921, there were 18 fraternities and 10 sororities at the University.
Aileen Lee has worked with students involved in the Greek system since 1951 in several University offices. She helped to create the first paid Greek Life adviser position. Now retired, she still volunteers in the Greek Life Office.
Lee, who has spent time researching the Greek system, said it is difficult to know how many students were involved in the Greek system during the early 1900s because few records were kept.
But early issues of the Emerald indicate that fraternities and sororities dominated social life on campus. In a 1916 student activities column in the paper, for example, little else is reported besides sorority dinner guests and fraternity socials.
The most important day of the first semester was reported to be “frosh open house,” when sororities would open their doors and fraternity men would file into each one and introduce themselves to every woman in the house.
Through the 1920s and 1930s, several more national fraternity and sorority chapters, including Alpha Chi Omega, Theta Chi and Delta Upsilon, were founded at the University.
During World War II, with many men gone to fight in the war, many fraternity houses were turned into boarding houses for women. Sororities on campus supported the war effort by raising money to buy war stamps, volunteering at the local Red Cross and sending Christmas presents to American soldiers, according to Emerald articles.
After the war, the Greek system thrived at the University. According to the University Alumni Association, more students were members of fraternities and sororities during the 1950s and 1960s than ever before or since.
Lee, who was a member of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority from 1951 to 1953, has fond memories of sorority social events and an annual Homecoming parade with floats built by fraternities and sororities. Fraternity and sorority members were active on campus, she said, and many student body presidents during the 1950s were involved in the Greek system.
In the fall of 1956, the Emerald reported that of a total student body of about 5,000, about 600 freshmen pledged to join Greek chapters. In the fall of 2001, of an estimated total student body of 18,600, 404 freshmen pledged.
Many of the University’s Greek houses were built or renovated during the 1950s and early ’60s, including the Kappa Sigma fraternity house.
The new house, which members of the fraternity still live in today, was built facing Alder Street rather than 11th Street, in hopes of softening the fraternity’s rivalry with neighbor Sigma Nu.
The rivalry between the two houses reportedly dated back to Prohibition times, when members of the Kappa Sigma fraternity built a whiskey still in their house. Fearing a raid, they sold the still to members of Sigma Nu, who were caught with it.
In 1960, The Register-Guard reported a strong Greek system at the University, with 16 sororities and 22 fraternities. Greek housing was in demand, but property near campus was scarce and very expensive.
But during the later years of the decade through the 1970s, many chapters, faced with declining membership and high mortgages, were forced to close.
University Greek Life coordinator Shelley Sutherland said fewer students joined fraternities and sororities during the 1960s and 1970s because of the Vietnam War and the overall social climate.
“Students rebelled against authority and being organized,” she said.
Four sororities and 12 fraternities closed between 1965 and 1971.
The 1978 release of “National Lampoon’s Animal House,” with scenes filmed inside the Sigma Nu house, brought notoriety to the chapter.
Since then, however, Greek organizations nationwide have tried to distance themselves from the picture of Greek culture shown in the movie, with binge drinking and riotous behavior by toga-clad members of a fictional fraternity.
At the University, several fraternities and all sororities have joined Select 2000, which bans drinking in chapter houses and promotes leadership and academic values.
And while the numbers of students in the Greek system have never again reached the levels of the 1950s, Greek membership began rising again in the 1980s and ’90s.
Several houses that closed during the late 1960s, such as Delta Upsilon and Lambda Chi Alpha, have returned to campus.
And over the past several years, fraternity and sorority membership has remained consistent, although Sutherland said fraternity membership is declining slightly.
Lee’s sorority, Zeta Tau Alpha, which closed in 1971, has not reopened a chapter on campus. But she still attends sorority reunions every year, she said. She said the friends she made in the sorority are “friends for life.”
Kara Cogswell is a student activities reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be reached at [email protected].