In the past decade, the campus has exploded with over 30 new Greek houses on sorority and fraternity row.
As the University continues to grow, with now a total of 31,647 the Greek system continues to grow with it. In fact, the Greek system has grown so much that Alabama has held the title as the largest Greek system in the nation since 2011! With this expansion of the University and the Greek system, the houses are upgrading to multimillion-dollar mansions to keep up.
With the boom of new houses, everyone is dying to know what it took to build these monster houses and what they look like on the inside. Well, The Odyssey has decided to start our very own UA Cribs! We will begin touring the houses, revealing pictures and asking the questions that everyone is dying to know.
Allow me to introduce the first house on UA Cribs, Alpha Gamma Delta. As an Alpha Gam member, I had the joy of watching the construction of this beautiful sorority house. The building project took 14 months starting in the Fall of 2011 and completed in January of 2013. The Alpha Gam house is approximately 31,000 square feet with four floors. There are 33 bedrooms, which is enough to sleep 62 young women.
As far as the expenses related to the new house, there are two questions that remain. The first question is who provided the funds to build the house? Second, whether the prices of the house bills have gone up significantly to pay for the expenses related to the new house. The house was funded through the collaboration of collegiate members and the donations of alumnae. Collectively, these individuals were able to raise enough money to fund the project. To answer the second question, though the house has doubled in size, the Alpha Gamma Delta house bills have not increased significantly. The price has only gone up $100 from the original house bill and is not set to change next semester.
More room would give the impression that the sorority would have a higher demand for new members to fill the huge space. Alpha Gam does not have this problem at all. In fact, this year the sorority had 113 young women pledge this year and as far as space is concerned, there is plenty of room for all the members.
“We consistently remain around the chapter total on campus due to our high retention rates for each pledge class," said Annie Newton, president of Alpha Gamma Delta. "Thus, while we are always excited about every girl who pledges each year, we keep the quota the same for the pledge class figures.”
Considering the old Alpha Gam house was one of the original “First Circle” houses on sorority row, what was the reasoning behind having a new house?
“As much as we loved our old house, we had outgrown it in size," said Newton. "The new house has provided us with space and resources in order to continue our growth.”
Now that the new house is complete, the women have more space to meet and have access to functional rooms to spend their down time in. “The girls never want to leave the house, which has made everyone closer and the chapter stronger through that," said Newton. "Morale is definitely higher now that we can actually fit in the house.”
