It’s the fraternities’ turn.
Greek Village II at the University of Central Arkansas is under construction on Donaghey Avenue. Three fraternities will build houses — Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Tau Gamma and Sigma Nu.
An official groundbreaking is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Sept. 14, the day of UCA’s first home football game.
Ronnie Williams, vice president for student services and institutional diversity, said the houses are a benefit for fraternity members and for UCA.
“I think it gives them that living-and-learning community we want for them,” he said.
The two-story fraternity houses are being built on the east side of Donaghey; two will be directly across the street from sorority houses. The Sigma Nu house will be built on a corner lot at Donaghey Avenue and Martin Street, north of the existing Sigma Phi Epsilon house.
Each fraternity house will have 7,365 square feet in identical floor plans, which include 11 bedrooms and a chapter meeting room. The exteriors will vary, although they will all follow UCA’s architectural guidelines of red brick and Colonial Georgian-style architecture.
The fraternity houses will cost just under $2.2 million each. Greek Village II will also
include a 4,730-square-foot, $1.4 million complex with meeting rooms for smaller chapters. It will be built between Augusta and Western avenues near a companion complex being utilized by smaller sororities.
Three sorority houses on Donaghey Avenue, two on Augusta Avenue and the complex opened in August 2015 in the first phase of the Greek Village.
Senior John Penn of Benton, president of Sig Tau, said it’s exciting to see the fraternity housing project become reality.
“There were doubters: ‘I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen.’ This past year has been really exciting. It set in last fall, with the fundraising events, that this is finally happening,” he said.
The Sig Taus now have a UCA-owned single-family house on Western Avenue and a chapter meeting room in the back of the property that alumni built several years ago, Penn said.
Although he said he’s disappointed that he will graduate before he can live in the new house, he thinks it’s a boost for Greek life.
“The fact that they’re building three brand-new houses — I think you’re going to see UCA really start to blow up [in enrollment],” he said.
Penn said he thinks “a lot of in-state students choose the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville or Arkansas State University in Jonesboro because of their Greek life. UCA having these houses will make this school a lot more competitive and attractive to kids. You see that with sororities, how many more members they have.”
Katie Frazier, assistant director of student life, said UCA has 380 members of fraternities; in comparison, Frazier said, UCA has 570 sorority women on campus.
The fraternity complex, built between Augusta and Western, will be utilized by four historically black fraternities: Alpha Phi Alpha, Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi and Phi Beta Sigma.
A companion complex for small sororities is on Augusta.
Williams said the four fraternities’ small number of members made it economically unfeasible for them to have houses.
UCA junior Caylin Allen of Bryant, president of Phi Beta Sigma, said he looks forward to using the Greek complex. Phi Beta Sigma, which has five members going into fall, uses a residence-hall meeting room now.
“I feel like [the complex] just gives us a better meeting space, and it gives us a much more professional meeting space,” he said.
He said the complex will also give the fraternity room to practice for step shows and other events.
Allen said he likes the location near the other fraternities and sororities.
“I’ve got a lot of different friends in different organizations,” he said, adding that Phi Beta Sigma sometimes partners with other fraternities for campus programs.
Sigma Nu President Spencer Burton of Little Rock, a senior accounting major, will also graduate before the house is built.
“I think it’s a fantastic project,” he said. “We contributed to the capital campaign and are very grateful to the alumni who contributed, in addition. It’s a great thing to instill the chapter’s legacy in a physical building for years to come.”
The $7.9 million project is being funded differently than the sorority houses. The UCA Foundation will fund the project, and UCA will lease the fraternity complex and houses from the foundation. UCA will maintain and operate the homes.
To reduce the cost to the UCA Foundation, before construction could begin on the fraternity houses, those chapters had to raise $250,000 — half in cash and half pledged over five years. The same arrangement, except the cost was $50,000 each, was made with the four fraternities sharing the complex.
Williams credited Haley Fowler with doing a “phenomenal job” with fundraising.
Fowler, director of development for student services and Greek Life, said she worked with the fraternities involved to raise their portion of the money.
“I worked with all the different groups in fundraising, reaching out to their alumni, and we did a really hard mini-campaign from November to April 1,” she said.
A donor wall will be created and displayed in the chapter room of each fraternity house and the complex, she said.
“It’s a way to showcase all the donors and their support for this project. It’s a way [for alumni] to leave their mark,” she said.
Fowler also said fundraising is ongoing, and alumni and supporters may donate to the UCA Foundation, directly to a specific fraternity, by going to uca.edu/giveGreek or by contacting her at (501) 450-5698.
The Greek housing project is one Fowler said she and others have talked about for decades. She is a 2006 UCA graduate and an alumna of Alpha Sigma Tau.
Fowler said she’s seen the housing issue come full circle.
“I have been involved in the Greek Village discussion since I was a student here at UCA,” she said.
She was a member of an exploratory committee on Greek housing and traveled to Tennessee to see university-owned housing, she said.
Fowler was also in charge of Alpha Sigma Tau’s fundraising for the Greek Village when she was an employee of UCA alumni services; now she is involved in Greek Village II.
“It’s been really exciting to see it come to fruition. I think it really helps with our Greek life, our Greek community,” she said. She also said the Greek Village will give alumni a central location, the northeast corner of campus, to gather when they visit.
Fowler agreed with Penn that the new houses should boost Greek participation. She said she expects fraternity membership to jump after the houses open, just as membership did in the sororities after the Greek Village opened.
The sorority project was approved under the leadership of former President Tom Courtway; Greek Village II is being built under the presidency of Houston Davis.
Williams said Davis embraced the project.
“President Davis — not only did he understand, but he supported the concept [of the Greek Village] in terms of not only what it means for students here on campus, but also what it would mean for recruitment in terms of giving students another reason to choose UCA,” Williams said.
“I think this truly, for our Greek community that excels in every category on our campus — when we talk about graduation rates, retention rates, overall academic achievement — our Greek students, that 11 percent of our student population, are at the top of every category.
Williams also mentioned the fraternity members’ “leadership, philanthropy and community service.”
“On one hand, I think it’s long overdue that we recognize their contributions,” Williams said.
But their time has come.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.