I saw the trailer for the new Anna Faris movie, The House Bunny, where her character gets a job as a sorority “house mother,” apparently a resident adult supervisor to the sisters. But my brother was in a fraternity and there was no adult supervisor in residence, AFAIK.
None of the sororities or fraternities at my alma mater had anything of the sort. It generally depends on what rules/regulations a given school/IFC/Pan-Hellenic council has regarding those situations. I know that about a year after I graduated, the IFC at my school tried to pass a series of stringent rules, one of which was that every fraternity that wasn’t based in campus housing (a few of them either rented a series of campus apartments, or were in school-owned buildings,) had to have a live-in adviser, picked by the school. The fraternities were to be required to give the adviser his own private room, free meal plan (if the fraternity had one,) AND pay his yearly stipend of a few thousand.
Needless to say, those measures did NOT pass.
Fraternities also have house mothers. Though it seems to not be as common as it used to be.
My frat had to get a resident advisor. We hired a Navy enlisted man who worked at the NROTC unit who was about 24, and always had the best pot. He got free room and board, we met the university requirement, and everybody was happy.
Female virtue must be protected from the evil fraternity guys.
Evil fraternity guys will not tolerate supervision.
-Butler
(Evil fraternity guy since 1990 )
The college I used to work for had house dads in the three fraternities, and the college I attended had house moms in about half of the 16 or so fraternities and all of the sororities. I believe (I was not a Greek) some of it has to do w policies dictated by the greek organization’s national office, along with policies at the school - ie the college I worked for said each house had to have such a person in order be recognized by the school, apply for funding, etc.
My grandmother was a fraternity housemother.
So this seems to be the answer:
My mother was a ΔΔΔ house mother for a while. Mostly, she worked with the city on code compliance and such for their house. Someone has to count the fire extinguishers, right?
A throw back to the double standard: Men were doubly praised if they stuck to the moral codes, and women were doubly damned if they didn’t.
My fraternity had a house father; granted, he was an undergraduate brother, but his responsibilities entailed looking after the house and (along with house corporation and the executive committee) making payments on bills, etc. He was also generally expected to be (relatively) sober at social functions and generally police the premises. As a result, his mandatory college binge drinking generally fell mid-week. Seeing as how he was generally one of the few brothers who was 21, this did not present a problem. As a reward, he got a scholarship and an apartment-ette.
Although I’m sure some schools at which the housing is actually owned by the school have “rules” about this, the reason sororities are more likely to have them than fraternities (by a very, very wide margin) is: parents.
This is even more true today than it was when I was in school in the 70s (I joined a frat, moved out, became houseboy in a sorority). Today’s helicopter parents are FAR more involved in their children’s college decisions, but historically parents of girls who join sororities have been pretty insistent upon this kind of “supervision.”
Colleges and universities used to use that excuse as justification for placing all manner of restrictions on female students (curfews, housing policies, etc) that were looser (or didn’t exist) for male students. Until the 70s the age of majority was 21 and at any given college most of the student body consisted of minors.
My fraternity had a house mother, who we shared with a sorority on campus. She lived there, but came to our weekly formal dinner and other “classy” functions. We also made sure she was frequently visited by our members (she was often quite lonely). It was mostly a ceremonial position, but she did make sure we learned some manners, and we all really loved her.
My ex-wife was a frat house mother for many years. She didn’t live with them; she was just an advisor of sorts, I guess.