The college Greek question, at the boundary

The CDP and the city

The famous absence, and the small real presence: The colleges at the city's edge divide on the Greek question exactly as their characters suggest. The University of Notre Dame — in the unincorporated Notre Dame CDP, and carried here at boundary size as this history carries the university throughout — prohibits the thing itself: its student rule book, du Lac, provides that "the establishment of, or membership in, social fraternities or sororities is considered contrary to the educational and residential mission of the University and is consequently prohibited," as the university's student newspaper quoted it in 2006, and the university's own tradition pages state the working result in the present tense: "With no Greek life on campus, residence halls become the place where lifelong relationships are formed." Saint Mary's College, across the road, likewise has no Greek system; its residence halls carry the social structure. The documented Greek presence at this ground belongs instead to the city's public university: Indiana University South Bend, inside the city limits, keeps national chapters — Alpha Sigma Phi's Zeta Sigma chapter, chartered 11 July 2014 after a colony formed in 2012, and the sororities Alpha Sigma Tau and Theta Phi Alpha stand in the university's published record beside it. And the city's Black Greek-letter world, which is a civic institution as much as a college one, enters this account at its documented size: Algie Oldham of St. Peter's Lodge was a life member of Kappa Alpha Psi, and the lodge record and the fraternity record meet in his published obituary in a single sentence — the two great Black fraternal traditions of the twentieth century, the lodge and the Greek letter, sharing one South Bend life.

Sources:

1. The Observer (Notre Dame), 23 Mar. 2006 — du Lac quoted: fraternities and sororities prohibited.
2. University of Notre Dame, "Tradition" (stories.nd.edu) — "no Greek life on campus."
3. Alpha Sigma Phi, chapter histories — Zeta Sigma chapter, IU South Bend, colonized 19 Feb. 2012, founded 11 July 2014.
4. Indiana University South Bend, published institutional summaries — Alpha Sigma Phi, Alpha Sigma Tau, Theta Phi Alpha.
5. Obituary of Algie S. Oldham Jr., South Bend Tribune, 19 Jan. 2011 — Kappa Alpha Psi life membership.