PKT25: Seniority & Room Draw
I've mentioned that seniority mattered when selecting rooms, work sessions and parking spots. As far as I can recall, these were the only things that seniority actually impacted so it really only mattered at the end of the semester. How did seniority work at the chapter? My memory isn't 100%, but as I recall, it was like this:
- In theory, if you owed more than a month's worth of rent/dues you dropped to the very end of the seniority list regardless of what your rating would be. I don't recall this coming up very often, and plenty of people graduated with substantial debt to the house, so I'm not sure it was all that effective. On the other hand, right after I came back from co-op I lent a brother $1000 when his financial aid got delayed by CWRU so he could get over the line in time for room draw.
- After the financial considerations, the next factor was the number of semesters that you had lived in the house. A sophomore who had lived in the house had more seniority than a junior who had never moved in. This was yet another factor to convince brothers to move in as soon as they could, which pragmatically was sophomore year for freshman (who were required to live in the dorm) or immediately for upperclassmen. The downside to this approach was that if somebody chose not to move in immediately, they were incentivized not to move in during later semesters. Similarly, if they moved out later on they probably weren't going to move back in.
- Semester of initiation was the last factor. If you were otherwise tied with someone, the brother who'd been initiated first won.
- If there was still a tie, we'd do a coin toss.
We used this seniority order for both parking spots and House Manager work sessions, which could only be held by a single person. Steward work sessions (aka, cleaning the kitchen) were simply assigned round robin since it was the same work every day.
When we did room draw, we added one wrinkle on top of this. People who wanted to room together got to pick their room before people who wanted to have a room to themselves. This stacked, so if there were three people who wanted to share a single room, they got to pick their room before any pair of people who wanted to room together, who in turn picked before any person who wanted to have a private room. Since many of the rooms were quite large, this encouraged people to team up, especially if they had less seniority and would otherwise have a crappier room. If there were ties, they were broken by the person with the highest seniority in the group of roommates.
As an example, when Hsia and I lived together Fall 1997 in the Studio, we had zero semesters of living in the house, but we still got to pick ahead of everyone else who didn't have a roommate. The semester, I think this meant we got to pick second overall, behind Josh and (I think) Tony who lived in the East Wing. I don't believe any of the other rooms contained multiple people at the start of the semester, although I could be wrong. Since the house was relatively empty that semester, very few people were incentivized to room together. In some later semesters things got more crowded and more people roomed together.
The only room that was an exception to this was the apartment over the garage. I believe it was empty in 1996-1997, and it was rented out to Gloria and May in 1997-1998, and then Neal and his family moved in in 1998 after some pretty extensive work to fix it up. I'm told that there have been years where actives picked that as their own room (usually with a roommate), but nobody was going to screw over Neal that way when we were there.
Summers were a little different from the fall and spring semesters because we rented rooms to non-brothers. Because the summer was shorter than the semesters, instead of the full semester rate we charged a fraction of the spring semester rate, which of course was already 80% of the north-side double rate that CWRU charged. Because of the wide variety in rooms, each one got its own fractional rate, with nicer rooms having higher rates. This rate would be reduced further if you had a roommate. Brothers paid a lower fractional rate than non-brothers. Due to this rent different, when we did summer room draw brothers often chose very different rooms from the semester to save some money.
Seniority was used for a handful of other things. Party worksessions were assigned by seniority, with the obvious caveat that those over 21 were often drafted to bartend. I have this vague memory that we might have lined up for dinner in the house via seniority, but that seems crazy so I've probably just made that up. I also seem to recall that occasionally we'd use seniority for some one-off situation that arose, but those were pretty rare. On the whole, it only mattered when we did room/parking/work session draw at the end of the semester.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout
- In theory, if you owed more than a month's worth of rent/dues you dropped to the very end of the seniority list regardless of what your rating would be. I don't recall this coming up very often, and plenty of people graduated with substantial debt to the house, so I'm not sure it was all that effective. On the other hand, right after I came back from co-op I lent a brother $1000 when his financial aid got delayed by CWRU so he could get over the line in time for room draw.
- After the financial considerations, the next factor was the number of semesters that you had lived in the house. A sophomore who had lived in the house had more seniority than a junior who had never moved in. This was yet another factor to convince brothers to move in as soon as they could, which pragmatically was sophomore year for freshman (who were required to live in the dorm) or immediately for upperclassmen. The downside to this approach was that if somebody chose not to move in immediately, they were incentivized not to move in during later semesters. Similarly, if they moved out later on they probably weren't going to move back in.
- Semester of initiation was the last factor. If you were otherwise tied with someone, the brother who'd been initiated first won.
- If there was still a tie, we'd do a coin toss.
We used this seniority order for both parking spots and House Manager work sessions, which could only be held by a single person. Steward work sessions (aka, cleaning the kitchen) were simply assigned round robin since it was the same work every day.
When we did room draw, we added one wrinkle on top of this. People who wanted to room together got to pick their room before people who wanted to have a room to themselves. This stacked, so if there were three people who wanted to share a single room, they got to pick their room before any pair of people who wanted to room together, who in turn picked before any person who wanted to have a private room. Since many of the rooms were quite large, this encouraged people to team up, especially if they had less seniority and would otherwise have a crappier room. If there were ties, they were broken by the person with the highest seniority in the group of roommates.
As an example, when Hsia and I lived together Fall 1997 in the Studio, we had zero semesters of living in the house, but we still got to pick ahead of everyone else who didn't have a roommate. The semester, I think this meant we got to pick second overall, behind Josh and (I think) Tony who lived in the East Wing. I don't believe any of the other rooms contained multiple people at the start of the semester, although I could be wrong. Since the house was relatively empty that semester, very few people were incentivized to room together. In some later semesters things got more crowded and more people roomed together.
The only room that was an exception to this was the apartment over the garage. I believe it was empty in 1996-1997, and it was rented out to Gloria and May in 1997-1998, and then Neal and his family moved in in 1998 after some pretty extensive work to fix it up. I'm told that there have been years where actives picked that as their own room (usually with a roommate), but nobody was going to screw over Neal that way when we were there.
Summers were a little different from the fall and spring semesters because we rented rooms to non-brothers. Because the summer was shorter than the semesters, instead of the full semester rate we charged a fraction of the spring semester rate, which of course was already 80% of the north-side double rate that CWRU charged. Because of the wide variety in rooms, each one got its own fractional rate, with nicer rooms having higher rates. This rate would be reduced further if you had a roommate. Brothers paid a lower fractional rate than non-brothers. Due to this rent different, when we did summer room draw brothers often chose very different rooms from the semester to save some money.
Seniority was used for a handful of other things. Party worksessions were assigned by seniority, with the obvious caveat that those over 21 were often drafted to bartend. I have this vague memory that we might have lined up for dinner in the house via seniority, but that seems crazy so I've probably just made that up. I also seem to recall that occasionally we'd use seniority for some one-off situation that arose, but those were pretty rare. On the whole, it only mattered when we did room/parking/work session draw at the end of the semester.
The Ohio Alpha Beta Chapter of Phi Kappa Theta
The House Tour
Outside,
Main Floor Bedrooms,
Main Floor Public Rooms,
Basement Public Areas,
Basement Private Areas,
2nd Floor Big Bedrooms,
2nd Floor Small Bedrooms,
3rd Floor First Hallway,
3rd Floor Second Hallway,
Attic & Errata,
House Tour Commentary: Joe & Laura & Astrid,
House Tour Commentary: Jackal,
House Tour Commentary: Susan,
House Tour Commentary: Assorted
The Pledge Program
Bid Night, Schedule, Curriculum & Black Books, Big Brothers & Pledge Pins, Paddling, Initiation
Semesters
Fall 1996, Spring 1997, Fall 1997
Events
Detour, Blackout, Boo at the Zoo, Chapter Meetings, Serenading
Other
Full Series, My Rush Experience, Chapter History, Family Trees, National, Greek Life at CWRU, Fraternity Offices, Part 1, Fraternity Offices, Part 2, Fraternity Offices, Part 3, Demographics, Seniority
Additional Commentary
Black Books, Boo at the Zoo & Blackout