Home is who the brothers are

Every day, hundreds of students walk up and down Gayley Avenue.
To the average student, many of the houses they pass are merely
buildings.

But for the fraternity brothers who occupy them, they are
home.

Two fraternities have been vacated this year from the stretch of
Gayley popularly known as “Frat Row,” leaving the
brothers of Sigma Phi Epsilon and Theta Xi without a home. Another,
Delta Tau Delta, is moving back into a large, white house just down
the street from the other two.

Members of both fraternity camps, those leaving and those
starting anew, had similar things to say when asked about the
importance of having a single residence.

The greatest advantage of a house, according to many fraternity
brothers, is having a centralized location for meeting and bonding.
Another is physical visibility, which is especially important
during the critical times of rush, when potential new members go
from house to house to decide which fraternity to join.

But most members agree it is the people within the fraternity
who make the house.

One leaves the Row

After 20 years of inhabiting its house at 611 Gayley Ave., Sigma
Phi Epsilon was forced to vacate the building.

The building’s age and many building code violations made
the house unfit to live in, said Sigma Phi Epsilon president David
Graham Caso, a fourth-year political science student.

“A house is incredibly important, but more important is
the people. The frat is not just the four walls. It is the
brotherhood and the memories that makes it worthwhile,” Caso
said.

Sigma Phi Epsilon plans to have a house again, but its location
and details have not been determined, Caso said. The former house
will be torn down.

Now living in apartments across Westwood, the chapter members
must find meeting locations and plan for the upcoming year without
a house, leaving them with two major hurdles: where to put their
displaced members, and how to recruit new ones.

“It was definitely a change, and it made recruitment very
difficult.” Caso said.

Normally, fraternities are able to attract new members during
rush, as the students walk down fraternity row, but without a
house, Sigma Phi Epsilon lost visibility, making it that much more
difficult to appeal to new students and garner new members. The
fraternity recruited 10 new members this fall, Caso said.

John Martini, a fourth-year political science student and
chapter member, said the lack of visibility for new members was the
most challenging part of losing the house.

“Not having a house hasn’t hurt as much. Those who
joined us joined for the guys, not the building,” he
said.

The greatest loss is losing the convenience of having its
members in one location, many brothers said.

“Having a house makes daily operations easier,”
Martini said. “Everything is just a little easier.”

Restructuring

The reasons for another fraternity’s exit from Gayley
Avenue did not have to do with the building.

Due to repeated violations of national fraternity policy and
guidelines, Theta Xi, which sits two buildings south of Sigma Phi
Epsilon, was put on dormant status and the fraternity house was
vacated.

Dormant status means the chapter is officially inactive, unable
to hold events or recruit members. All Theta Xi brothers were put
on alumni status after the closure.

Nishant Bhargava, a third-year electrical engineering student
and Theta Xi alumnus, used to live in the house and recognizes the
difficulties a fraternity must adjust to when losing a house.

“If you’re living together, it’s easier just
to get together to do anything. It was like having 40 or 50 of your
best friends all in the same house,” Bhargava said.

With no plans for future recruitment until the chapter’s
reinstatement, scheduled for fall 2007, Theta Xi will have
difficulty getting back on its feet Bhargava said.

Having lived in a house and being forced to leave, Bhargava says
the difference is palpable.

“It’s just not the same thing without a house.
It’s harder, but you just have to stick together,”
Bhargava said.

A new home

But while some fraternities must survive a year or two without a
house, others are starting the year with a new place to call
home.

Delta Tau Delta has regained its former house on Gayley, just
two buildings down from Theta Xi, a goal members have been taking
steps toward since returning to UCLA in 2002.

Jonathon Sauerbrun, a UCLA alumnus from 2005 and a founding
father of the UCLA chapter of Delta Tau Delta, said having a house
has made coming together easier.

“We were nomads, meeting on campus or at random
apartments. The house is a place to congregate. It is not
essential, but it certainly promotes greater unity within the
fraternity,” Sauerbrun said.

Sauerbrun said the most important thing is how they looked at
the situation. Forced to be creative in recruitment and activities,
the fraternity provided a different type of atmosphere for its
brothers, and the result brought them closer together, he said.

“It was a long process to get the house … but it really
has paid off,” Sauerbrun said.