Are you willing or want to share the news? jc
The problem with UH is not a lack of Frats.
You know what the âproblemâ is? There is no problem. We are, who we are.
We will never be A&M. They are what they are. It is not for us. It is great for them. If you actually wanted to go to A&M you would have went there.
You attend a great metropolitan university in one of the leading cities of the world. Be proud and move on with your life.
As far as football, we will win some games and we lose some games. I hope that we would win a few more.
Welcome to 2025, Otto and Bluto are not coming back and you donât have to worry about double secret probation.
Me, I am the lone wolf. Nobody would have me. I was as scout and APO wouldnât have me. I am Jewish and the Jewish Frat wouldnât have me.
I got tossed from HRMS a defunct hotel group because I questioned why the kitty was being used to pay parking tickets for club officers.
I am GDI till the day I die.
Phi Sigma Kappa is going to try to restart a chapter next fall. Was supposed to have happened last fall but UH delayed them for what seemed to be no good reason.
Your tone sounds kind of bitter, Iâm also GDI but understand and would like a present Greek Row or Greek District. My focus is the surrounding neighborhood becoming more engaged and receptive with the campuses (UH and TSU) and not anti-college. My anti-college meaning is, not wanting or allowing multi-occupant individual housing within its HOA and deed restrictions.
Bitter?
If you think I am bitter now you should have seen me 40 years ago.
I am cool now. Years of meditation and blood pressure medication.
I used to behave like Colonel Slade at the boarding school.
HCCâs current site is where UH (then HJC) originally held classes. It was also San Jacinto HS at the time.
Third Ward is definitely gentrifying. Whether or not one supports this is another topic, but itâs happening nonetheless. Itâs really picked up in the last decade, and Midtown is slowly bleeding into the other side of 59 with townhouses being built in the northwest portion of Third Ward.
That being said, I donât think Third Ward is going to be party central outside of that one area.
Itâs going to most likely turn into Rice Village/West U. The townhomes will be in the northern area of Third Ward, and the rest will be very single-family, residential and NIMBY-ish.
Everything south of OST will be the slowest to change, but everything north of OST is pretty much on its way.
Does anyone know if the girls who join sororities at the schools with heavy Greek life are there for MRS degrees?
From my time at UH, I didnât encounter much of them even though the talent was plentiful during my time compared to now.
Definitely happens at more Traditional Universities.
Their parents send them to Universities with similar like minded coeds to hopefully find a marriage partner and start a life together right after college.
She could care less about football but still made sure to be in the environment to blend in / thatâs how UT and A&M force those who donât care about sports to care
But also is she a suburban student as that plays a big role
HISD and local districts best days are behind us as the demographic now doesnât cater to sports - in the 70s it was different as your âsuburbââ was westbury, Madison or Lee and you still were close to everything and folks were proud of their community and it translated into college
Residents of the wards were still proud of their schools and folks who grew up in its hey day would mention how having games at Robertson stadium helped keep their interest past high school
In 15-20 years, HISD will be a good school district again. In fact every school district zoned within the beltway will be different.
Not to be so blunt, but once the baby boomer generation cycles out of the American demographic, I predict thereâs going to be a huge shift away from far out suburbs
That is trueâŠcities develop in layers with people moving in and out .
They quickly transform from rich to poor or from poor to rich
A City Centre type development really transform that area. I meanâŠthere are FIFTY thousand students waiting for something to be developed to keep them ON CAMPUS after class.
Rockefeller Center was built in a area comparable to the Third Ward. Today it is one of the jewels of Manhattan.
Not exactly happening in Katy thus far though.
In my neighborhood, you see hardly any boomers; maybe one such family in my whole subdivision.
Most are GenX on down, and very multi-racial/multi-cultural.
BasicallyâŠ.anyone with enough money regardless of race or ethnicity that wants to get their kids into the best school district.
Seenitallcougar gave a good description and explanation about UHin the â70s.
There are some historical inaccuracies creeping into the discussion that really do not explain the current state of the Greek System.
First A&M is 51 years older, has always been state supported and had access to the PUF. For its first 100 years it was an all male military school. They create great traditions and those are enjoyed to this day. If I could copy anything it is how welcoming they are to visitors. Go to a game at Kyle Field. I wish we were as friendly. That said quit the comparison.
In 1945 we became a private school. By 1950 we had 12 buildings and 14,000 students making us the second largest university in the state. Our enrollment dropped because we were really expensive. I know we all have been told that we were created to educate first generation kids who were financially disadvantaged. No! Houston was a town of over 500,000 with one college, Rice, with less than 2000 students. We were created to educate the kids that couldnât get into Rice and there was an obvious market because by 1950 we were seven times larger than Rice. Yell it makes for a good story and I am sure the Cullens wanted to help kids but the school was damn expensive.
This was the period of Jack Valenti , Frontier Fiesta and a substantial Greek System involving a much higher percentage of students than today. I went to a homecoming game played at Rice. The frats had built huge floats that displayed coeds in their formals. Everyone in town attended the Frontier Fiesta.
But the expense was reducing enrollment. The school became state supported in 1963. I arrived fall of 1966, first generation kid working part time. There were now 19,000 students probably 17,000 undergrads. The average undergrad was 26 and married. I suspect there were about 9000 traditional students ages 18-22. Of those there were 2000-2500 Greeks a much higher percentage than today. The problem was there was no focus or support from the administration.
I never saw Philip Hoffman speak to a student. However, during my years as an undergraduate we built 19 major buildings. Each had to be individually lobbied through the legislature. We werenât in the PUF. CBY told me that Hoffman could get him into the board room of every major company in the city. So I guess he was busy.
Today Google tells me there are more affluent students than low income students. In my day 80% of the traditional students were working part time. Yet I had a traditional campus experience. The Greek System had major campus events, the Bike Race, Derby Day, the PKT Hunt. I had complete access to the student life deans. They were very supportive of me personally and the system. The problem was they had no support from the school.
Thus, ditch the talk that first generation kids arenât going Greek. The current percentage is woefully small. Donât tell me to increase the number of houses will make the current houses smaller. You have 38,000 undergrads. You need to pick up the pace and develop a better rush program. Lastly, I never would have made it without the counseling I got from the upper classmen in my fraternity. If you are first generation you had better find some infrastructure to support you. A fraternity levels the field for a guy like me that didnât even know what a semester hour was. 27 houses by fall go to it.
The overwhelming majority of first gen kids are not going Greek. Thatâs a fact. Saying it isnât doesnât make it so
Yes!
This notion that we were always a working class University is dead wrong!
If anything, we are slowly shifting back to who WE were orginally.
The overwhelming majority of students today arenât going Greek. Even at Bama, only like 36% of the student population participates.
If someone had told me that the undergraduate numbers had just doubled I would make certain that our pledge class numbers doubled.
No one expects everyone to go Greek but 1000 out of 38,000 is ridiculous. The potential universe is just too large to accept the current numbers. Someone needs to take a hard look at their rush chairmen. The size of the school doubled and the number of Greeks got cut in half.
The original point was to expand the number of Greeks to create a more traditional campus atmosphere. The result would be increased attendance at the games, events etc. In the process you might attract less first generation kids but I find that irrelevant. The fact that someone is first generation has more positive characteristics for me than negative.
Lastly, without a solid Greek system working with the school and supported by the school you will never have a traditional campus atmosphere.
All the fraternities keep getting kicked off
Hello Hugh,
I have several young family members and friends that are currently enrolled and living on campus. Many of the new generation students are not familiar with the âcommuter schoolâ only mentality like when we went to school.
Currently there are around 8K students on campus. That doesnât included the number of students that live in new apartments in walking distance to the campus. UH is opening new housing in the next 3 years which will change their status to âprimarily residentialâ and have over 10k+ students on campus. In comparison, Texas Tech houses around the same number of students as UH but their total enrollment is 33K.
I agree with you that there needs to be more more money in Greek Life. Thereâs already almost 40 chapters at UH with over 1100+ student members. Keep in mind that UH has a lot of organizations and events that go on around campus. And many of these campus events, including sporting events, coincide with Greek Life and their chapters. For example, the music chapter Beta Sigma Chapter of Kappa Kappa Psi, have many of the members that are part of the Spirit of Houston marching band as well. Spirit is trying raise over a million dollars.
A lot of the school funding to grow the campus is going to athletics because that is where the biggest events and promotions lie. The last basketball game was sold out (Kansas State).