Living the dry life.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

When incoming freshman Jacob Daniels went shopping for a fraternity last spring, finding one where there's still beer in the cooler wasn't a problem.

"At some of the houses, there'd be alcohol everywhere. They'd be serving drinks right in front of me," he said Friday as he and his new fraternity brothers got ready for the last weekend before classes start. "They'd be like, `On paper we're dry,' and they'd give me the wink."

But that wasn't what Daniels was looking for, and he ended up pledging Sigma Alpha Epsilon in large part because it enforces the University of Oregon's new rule banning alcohol from all fraternity houses affiliated with the university. This will be the first full year under the rule, which went into effect in January, and it's shaping up as a major test of the UO's effort to change the "Animal House" culture that still clings to some fraternities 25 years after the movie was filmed on campus.

How successful the university is may determine whether local fraternities are able to survive in a world where college students face financial and social pressures unlike any generation perhaps since the Great Depression. Overall fraternity membership at the UO has been slipping for more than 10 years, many of the houses are run down, and money to meet the UO's new standards is hard to come by.

The party image is a relatively recent one for most fraternities, which were known for brotherhood, service and leadership as much as good times up until the 1960s. The university hopes that closing the in-house bars will help push the party houses back toward their roots and once again make them attractive to a broader group of young men.

"The `bad boy' image has and still does hurt them. It's always hurt them," said Gregg Lobisser, director of student activities at the UO. "Recruiting is down instead of up. To break that, we felt we had to address the alcohol issue."

Membership skyrocketed in the 1970s

From the late 1970s through the next decade fraternity membership nationwide boomed, fueled in part by the scenes of nonstop partying in movies and television. Membership went from 230,000 to 400,000 and fraternities in Eugene counted about 1,200, although accurate numbers are hard to come by because membership reports are voluntary.

But the bubble burst in the 1990s, partly because the years of Bacchanalia trashed houses and alienated men interested in the traditional aspects of fraternity life and partly because of changes in youth culture coupled with the rising cost of higher education.

Nationwide, membership dropped to 300,000 but has seen some rebound and is currently about 350,000, said Pete Smithhisler, executive vice president of the National Interfraternity Conference. But at the UO the trend has been straight down, with current membership estimated at about 500.

"I think the men have gone through a lot of changes over the years that have created some decline," said Shelley Sutherland, the UO's Greek Life coordinator. "It remains to be seen whether they can pull themselves out of the decline and get back on an upward trend."

"Animal House" never was the norm at all fraternities, and those that stayed true to their values deeply resent the stereotype foisted on them by the movie and chapters that paid homage to Bluto rather than Plato. By the late 1990s, a push toward dry houses began to catch on as the university, local police and alumni associations sought to tame the unruly houses and create a level playing field for those that were dry voluntarily.

The university made it official last year, banning alcohol from the frat houses (sororities always have been dry) and imposing new grade-point standards. Also, all houses will be required to have fire sprinklers by next year and have live-in adult house managers the year after that.

Compliance with the rules varies. Lobisser said it appears that all of the chapters will meet the sprinkler requirement by next year despite costing each house upwards of $50,000. Several are adding in-house managers ahead of schedule and most houses appear to be taking the grade standards seriously.

"What that tells me is the Greek culture believes we mean it and they intend to stay," he said. "They've moved to a place of 'How do we get there?' So I'm pretty positive."

No booze policy irks some

But the alcohol rule is the one that's creating the most friction. Two fraternities - Pi Kappa Alpha and Sigma Nu - either did not comply or missed the deadline for signing the no-booze pledge and lost their university affiliation, which usually means they lose their charter from the national organization. Lobisser said both have since applied for reaffiliation.

Twelve chapters currently remain on campus - down from 16 in 1990 - and compliance with the alcohol rule is mixed. Dustin Funes, chapter president at the Theta Chi house, said members there are told not to drink in the house but said it's not something he can monitor minute-by-minute.

"Would it surprise me (to find alcohol in the house)? Yes. Does it happen? Probably," he said. "You can't observe everybody's movements 24 hours a day."

Like many fraternity members, Funes supports the university's efforts to strengthen the fraternity system but chafes at the one-size-fits-all approach.

"I support what the university is doing to make us safer houses, but I think it should be up to the chapters to do on our own. I don't think it should be force fed to us," he said.

Chris Baldwin, chapter president at Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said his house strictly enforces the no-alcohol rule and even expelled one member last year after he was caught breaking it. Several others left voluntarily in part because they didn't like the rule, he said.

But Baldwin said only a handful of houses are doing the same.

"From what I hear it's us, Sigma Chi and Delta Sigma Phi that are the only truly dry houses," he said.

Fraternity members, even those in the dry houses, are reluctant to name names, at least on the record. But they say it's an open secret that several houses have only moved the alcohol out of sight.

And alcohol is still served at parties held at rented venues and at the "live-out" houses of members who live on their own rather than in the chapter house. Those are allowed under university rules as long as they are properly supervised, serve only those 21 and older and meet other standards.

"I hope that they do have parties," said Lobisser. "But I hope they're legal parties."

Luring young students

Getting all of the fraternities moving back toward a more responsible lifestyle won't be easy, and it's too soon to tell whether the UO's effort will work. For one thing, many of the houses are in need of serious repair after years of hard use, but with membership down it's hard to generate the cash flow needed to pay for it.

SAE alumnus Steve Frichette has taken over several closed fraternities and one sorority and turned them into rooming houses and also has contracted to fix up several houses beat up by years of hard use and neglect. He's a big supporter of the Greek system and regrets seeing the houses close down.

"I wish they were all still Greek," he said. "It's this great little oasis in your life when you can kind of become who you're going to become. I see that kind of going away."

Sorority membership also has taken a dip, but not nearly as much. Most of the houses are full, and that and the absence of wild parties has allowed chapters to keep elegant and well-maintained houses.

Sutherland said there are more women trying to get into sororities than they can accept. But even fraternities that are doing well still have substantially fewer members than they did during their heyday.

The challenge for the men will be to make themselves more appealing to young students who aren't after a party lifestyle. If they can do that in the short term, they'll be able to build up their finances and fix up their houses in ways that will help keep new members joining.

John Hannam, chapter president at Delta Sigma Phi, said it's working for them. His was the first chapter to go dry at the UO and the first Delta chapter nationally to do so, and he expects membership to hit 70 this year, up from 51 last year.

Having a dry house "has helped immensely," Hannam said. "It keeps our living environment clean. When we bring in prospective members, they want to live in our house," he said.

Lobisser said that's an encouraging sign. He knows the new rules aren't going to completely stop drinking in fraternity houses, but he's hopeful they will instill a greater sense of responsibility and spark a shift toward traditional values.

"We haven't changed the nature of youth, but we have moved the Greek environment to a higher level of vigilance," he said. "It's hard to turn it around. But it can be done."

CAPTION(S):

Students at a Delta Sigma Phi party Friday night consume plenty of soda. The University of Oregon fraternity attracted more than 200 students to their no-alcohol event. The university officially banned alcohol last year from the frat houses. Thomas Boyd / The Register-Guard Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members (from left) Jacob Daniels, Mike Rose, Brian Thomas and Ryan Newman talk on the porch of their house on the University of Oregon campus.