After the first full year of the new housing quotas for selective living groups on campus, the fraternity Delta Sigma Phi and the SLG Nexus will trade sections, and the sorority Gamma Phi Beta will get its own on-campus section next year.
Delta Sigma Phi will relocate into Nexus’ Central Campus section on 1911 Erwin, and Nexus will take Delta Sigma Phi’s place in Craven B Quadrangle on West Campus. Gamma Phi Beta will become the only sorority to have a section on West Campus when it moves into Edens 3A—currently occupied by the fraternity Sigma Pi. The sorority submitted its application to become a selective living group in Fall 2013. Its president, junior Zoe Lipman, declined to comment.
“Although West Campus has always had a special place in our heart as a chapter we agreed it was time to move due to our larger numbers and the size our current section,” wrote junior Max Nides, president of Delta Sigma Phi, in an email. “Due to Nexus’ amazing location it was an opportunity we simply couldn’t pass up.”
Sigma Pi does not have enough members to keep its section, explained President of Sigma Pi Matt Plaut, a junior.
“We’re a relatively small, tightly-knit community, and while our members and I love this about our group, it unfortunately is not the best fit with our rather large section,” said senior Cullen Burling, executive chair of Nexus.
Dean for Residential Life Joe Gonzalez said that Housing, Dining and Residence Life offers selective living groups the option of trading sections every academic year—changes did not occur in previous years because the office has not been able to find a mutual match to switch housing. This year, junior George Mellgard, Duke Student Government vice president for residential life, also assisted in the process.
Early on in the school year, Nexus reached out to HDRL expressing their desire to trade to a smaller house, Gonzalez explained.
“Rather than trying to compromise our identity to fill these beds, we decided it was probably best to downsize and look for a section that could better suit our needs,” Burling explained, noting that the new Residential Group Assessment Committee rules made it impossible for Nexus to meet the newly instituted quota guidelines for selective living groups with just their members.
Initially, Nexus proposed to swap sections with Delta Delta Delta on Central, but ultimately, Delta Delta Delta was not able to swap housing, Gonzalez said. Shortly after, HDRL heard that Delta Sigma Phi was interested in moving from West Campus to Central Campus, and the leaders of both groups spoke about the prospect of switching houses.
“Delta Sigma Phi seemed to have the opposite problem we did,” Burling said. “We had too many beds for our members and they had too many members for their beds.”
Both Delta Sigma Phi and Nexus mutually agreed to the switch and voted within their groups to swap houses.
“A move to West was originally not on our radar since our members were used to living the Central life,” Burling said. “But, after thinking it through our members decided that the benefits the move would provide outweighed any attachment to Central.”
Gonzalez reached out to both groups after they agreed to the switch to make sure all members in each group were made aware of of the decision.
“It was shared with me that both groups [Nexus and Delta Sigma Phi] had extensive, healthy debates about if they should trade houses,” Gonzalez wrote in an email.
No renovations need to be done for the move to take place. HDRL will coordinate moving items in the common rooms that are specific to the two groups.
New selective living groups must apply to be approved by HDRL and are not granted a house unless the house’s current group leaves, Gonzalez explained. The opening in Edens 3A occurred when Sigma Pi lost its status as a selective living group.
The trade between Delta Sigma Phi and Nexus and the addition of housing for Gamma Phi Beta come as the first significant changes to selective living group assignment in the past several years. The most recent trades took place in Fall 2011, when Jam! and The Cube switched houses, as did Delta Sigma Phi and Chi Psi. Gonzalez wrote in an email that HDRL approved both trades before the groups had to move into the sections they had been originally assigned to.
Burling was optimistic about the prospects for community that Nexus’ move will bring.
“Once we are in a more appropriately sized section and can more reliably fill that section with our members, we can turn our focus to building our organization in other ways,” Burling said. “West will obviously be a different experience than Central, but we’re really excited for what the future holds.”
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