Canadians Go Greek: the source for Canadian Chapters

The Ubyssey, University of British Columbia Student Paper - Sept 30, 2003

by Michael Cook/News Writer

UBC sorority girls will soon be spilling drinks in their own building.

Workers began digging on the site where a sorority house will stand next August—the university's first in five years. But the house, which will be located on Wesbrook Mall next to the UBC RCMP detachment, provides "a mixed blessing" of one building for UBC's eight sororities rather than a building for each of them, said Gamma Phi Beta member Sarah Pilgrim.

"It's unfortunate that we each don't have our own houses," she said. "The women that come through the Greek system here miss out on a part of sorority life that is offered on campuses everywhere else." Currently, there are multiple houses for UBC's ten fraternities.

The sororities will have to share the house because much of the money came from alumni and fundraising, said Sarah Fairburn, a spokesperson for UBC's sororities. The Greek system in Canada, particularly for women, is not popular enough to generate the necessary funds for separate houses, she added.

The house will have 72 spots for some members of each sorority. It will also provide eight chapter meeting rooms for sororities, which now meet irregularly in classrooms where no academic classes are going on because of noise concerns. Fairburn said sorority housing is a not a new concept on UBC's campus. There used to be a Pan-Hellenic house on SW Marine Dr.

"It wasn't really safe for 200 women to be living off in a dark corner of campus," she said, adding that the building was eventually condemned for health reasons in 1997. Next door to the new sorority building, UBC is also slated to complete seven new houses for campus fraternities after leases on the old Wesbrook Mall buildings across from UBC hospital expired.

The new buildings, which will house 220 people and cost about $8 million, should be completed bythe end of October, fraternity members say. "The new buildings are a step up," said Graham Pence, President of the UBC Inter-Fraternity Council. "They sleep more members, and are newly furnished as well as having more space."

The site for the new buildings was approved in July 1999 after consultations, said Matthew Carter, project development manager for UBC Properties Trust, the company building the new houses.

"The fraternity village is better consolidated than the old houses," said Carter. The land the new fraternities will sit on was allocated by UBC's Board of Governors as a 99-year lease, he said.