L D V I R SV organization to establish itself on campus. The rules ranged from the requirement of a live-in “house mother” to the prohibition of hazing – “Hell Week” will not be tolerated, the memo said, instead, “Help Week” would be encouraged. Eastern’s official archivist and historian, Charles Mutschler, PhD, looked into the efforts of fraternities trying to establish themselves on the campus under the newly-proscribed rules. Student life was very vibrant during the mid-‘60s, with most students living on campus in living groups revolving around specific residence halls. The new Greek organizations jumped right in. “The fraternities seemed to have a fair degree of support early on,” Mutschler said. “They show up regularly in the yearbooks and The Easterner (student newspaper) as frequent participants in allcampus activities and events.” Mutschler said there appeared to be a push to establish fraternities at the college shortly after World War II, but those efforts “Didn’t really go anywhere.” The movement towards establishing fraternities started again in the late ‘50s and culminated in Hagie’s 1964 set of conditions, Mutschler said. The Kinnikinick, the college’s yearbook, had a new section featuring the Greek system in 1965, by then, the Greek system expanded into five organizations. A 32-member fraternal “colony” calling itself Epsilon Sigma was said to be looking for affiliation into a national fraternity. It started in 1962, with the efforts of six students, and was recognized as Eastern’s first-ever fraternity – albeit without official administrative recognition. Another group seeking national affiliation, Kappa Chi Lambda, housed 35 members and pledges (and a dog named Studley) in a house across from Sutton Park, a few blocks from campus. They put on a pajama dance, a hayride and four mixers during the school year. As the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s, the campus started to change, and with it, changed the college’s Greek system. An influx of cheap apartments in Cheney and Spokane lured students off campus. Students became less interested in “belonging” to organizations and the Greek system at Eastern saw its participation diminish as the decade advanced. In 1978, the movie Animal House was released, which etched negative stereotypes about fraternities into the country’s consciousness. Greek systems throughout the country saw precipitous drops in participation around this time. Eastern’s remaining Greek system fizzled out and died in 1980, with the dissolution of the campus’ last two fraternities, Theta Chi Upsilon and Alpha Pi Alpha.
Rebirth The EWU students who worked to re-establish a Greek system at the university in the late 1980s were a determined bunch, and perhaps most determined among them were the female students who carved out a bigger place for sororities on the campus. “I just wanted to have as much of a college student experience as I could,” said Gina Mauro, (’90 BA communication studies) the first president of EWU’s chapter of Alpha Phi, EWU’s first nationallyaffiliated sorority. Mauro and “just a couple girls” moved into a house on Second Street in 1986, and founded a local sorority, calling themselves Zeta Theta Nu. “That started a lifetime of ‘doing things’,” Mauro said. Feeling ambitious, Mauro and her sorority sisters pushed forward in an effort to become affiliated with Alpha Phi, a national fraternal organization for women started in 1872. After proving to the national organization that they were a going concern, the women of Zeta Theta Nu became Alpha Phi members. The momentum from the affiliation was immediate, and the sorority quickly grew to 50 members by Mauro’s senior year in 1990. The challenge of being president of the sorority was huge, Mauro said. “It was a lot like herding cats – I like to think I cut my teeth on leadership during that time, managing all aspects of the running of the sorority,” she said. “It was challenging, arranging social events, doing philanthropy and keeping the girls safe. But we survived it. We got there – and they are still there.” Remembering the humble abode they began in, Mauro said she is a bit jealous of the current Alpha Phi sisters. “Their house, that’s nice – that looks like a sorority house.” But, Mauro said running a sorority was less complicated at that time, as Greek organizations weren’t as focused on protecting their chapters from lawsuits as they are now. “We didn’t have a risk manager, like they do now,” she said. “I look back, we had parties, but nothing ever got out of control – it was sort of an idyllic time.” At some of those parties was a young Sigma Nu named Connan Campbell, (’91 BA business) who, 20 years after the fact, is now dating Mauro. “Facebook is a wonderful thing,” Mauro laughed. Campbell came to Eastern in 1986, and joined what would become EWU’s nationally-affiliated Sigma Nu chapter. After a decade of campus life devoid of Greek organizations, five fraternity houses reopened at EWU over five years, beginning with Delta Chi in 1984. Campbell said his fraternity had about 40 people, with the other fraternities averaging about 30 members each. “The late 1980s was a time of rebirth of Greek life all over the
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