by Joe Harris
senior editor

Members of UM-St. Louis' sororities voiced their displeasure about the new University Center's floor plan to vice-chancellors G. Gary Grace and Reinhard Schuster at the Nov. 18 Student Government Association meeting.

Sorority representatives are not happy because the new University Center, currently under construction, will not have permanent designated rooms for the sororities.

Joanne Eddington, vice-president of Delta Zeta, said the sororities were promised such rooms when the University Center was first planned.

"We have been told for years and years that when the new University Center was built that all three sororities would have a chapter room over there where we could hold meetings, hold rituals such as our initiation, and hold formal rush over there," Eddington said.

Eddington said she learned Tuesday that they will not get a chapter room and may not get one of the 30 cubicle spaces allotted in the University Center for student organizations. She said the cubicle would consist of a telephone and maybe a computer and if they do get one, they would probably have to share it with another organization.

"Since we have been promised [a meeting room]," Eddington said, "a phone and some file cabinets will do nothing for us. We already have storage off campus."

UM-St. Louis sororities are not allowed to have houses like the fraternities because laws in both Bel-Ridge and Bel-Nor state that a house occupied by five or more women of different blood is considered a brothel.

Since the sororities do not have a house, they have to schedule rooms in J.C. Penney and other campus buildings to hold their meetings and rituals. Eddington said getting rooms is sometimes an impossible task.

"Also, you have to schedule things like a month in advance," Eddington said. "If you don't get the request in in time, then you don't get a room, and if you don't get a room, you don't have a meeting."

Kelly Reece, president of Alpha Xi Delta, said she has experienced problems similar to Eddington's.

"I go to the Student Activities Office at least once a month to fill out room request forms," Reece said, "and for at least two meetings a month, I have to scrounge for a room."

Both Eddington and Reece said they fear the same types of problems in securing rooms will continue in the University Center.

Grace said he doesn't remember if designated sorority chapter rooms were ever in the University Center's design, but that there were a lot of ideas in the original planning stages.

"When the planning began in 1988, there were numbers of ideas that were put down into the plan about various functions or space allocations that could be used," Grace said. "There were probably more ideas than moneys to fund those ideas, so at some point in time in the planning, priorities had to be set and certain ideas were taken off the table."

Grace said designated space was given to student organizations who served the needs of all students like the SGA. Grace said these organizations also have an operational function that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making designated space a necessity.

Grace said there is a common space in the University Center that will be designed to meet the needs of the other student organizations.

"I think given the fact that we have well over 120 organizations at one time or another," Grace said, "there are common areas that can be used to meet the needs of the organizations."

A meeting has been set up to hear the sororities' complaints by Rick Blanton, director of Student Activities. The meeting, open to all sorority members, will take place at Student Activities on Dec. 2 at 2 p.m.

Eddington and Reece said they still want a permanent chapter room, if not in the University center, then either in J.C. Penney or Woods Hall.