When Ohio Northern University put a new housing code into place, it affected all off campus chapter houses. Zeta Kappa Chapter had five years to decide if they were going to overhaul an existing house in the area, build a new house, or move on to campus. Last summer, Zeta Kappa Chapter and the Alumni Corporation decided that it was in the best interest of the chapter to move on campus. Not only would on campus housing be more affordable, it also offers increased camaraderie, teamwork, and coordination between Greeks on campus.
"We are leasing a ‘residence hall style’ complex from the University,” said Tom Gresavage, President of Zeta Kappa Chapter. “We will be occupying one half of the complex. Our half of the complex has two floors that consist of eight double bed rooms, and a ‘Hut’ (common area with furnished kitchen),” he continued.
'The Hut’ includes a kitchen, office, study room and common area. The entire building has RFID (card activated) controlled locks on the exterior doors. All of the doors leading to the common area on the interior also have RFID locks, allowing access to the chapter space to be given solely to our brothers and alumni.
“Brothers can also access the dining hall via a meal plan,” said Gresavage “And there is a furnished kitchen that can be utilized for daily meals, chapter wide meals, and chapter events,” he added. “The kitchen is large and the Alumni Corporation has paid for all new plates, utensils, and professional cooking implements for use by the chapter for events,” he said.
Another nice thing about campus housing, the brothers were given a considerable amount of freedom to decorate. They were able to choose the colors to be painted, as well as where items were hung.
“When decorating the space, the members and alumni of our chapter took the utmost care to display artifacts of the proudest moments in our chapter's history,” said Gresavage. “We have our most recent chapter composites hung to showcase the current face of our brotherhood, as well as composites from each of our 4 previous chapter houses,” he continued.
New furniture was purchased for the study by the Alumni Corporation. Not only does the room promote academic excellence, but it is also a room where mementos commemorating the chapter's greatest achievements, and chapter history are on display. The space is inviting and an area for the brothers to call home.
“We have also hung vinyl decals in certain windows which tastefully personalize the space as belonging to Theta Chi,” said Gresavage. “In front of the house (facing the other buildings in the cluster of complexes) we will have a sign which will have the name and date of founding proudly displayed. On the back of the house (which faces the front of campus, and can be seen from the road as well as far onto campus) we will have large brushed nickel or aluminum letters which further declare the presence of our chapter on campus, and in a growing "Greek Center" (which the University has promisingly named Affinity),” he added.
“The brotherhood sees this as a great opportunity to continue to recruit the most outstanding gentlemen and effectively serve the noble purpose of our chapter,” said Gresavage.