Ashton dorm to house fraternity

The Weatherly wing in Ashton Quad has been vacant this summer, but a recent agreement with Kappa Sigma fraternity will have the building full again in the fall.\n"(The fraternity) approached us about the possibility of living as groups in our residence hall," said Patrick Connors, executive director of Residential Programs and Services. "We decided that we would use Weatherly for that."\nRPS stresses that the situation with Kappa Sigma will be temporary. The fraternity's members that choose to live in Weatherly will be there for only one year and they will be treated like any other on-campus resident, following the same rules and regulations.\n"It was my understanding that there was a fraternity that was going to be homeless," Moore said. "They needed a place to stay until their house was built. Some of the members of the chapter are going to come and live with us. They'll be living with us just like any other resident would be. The fact that they are members of a fraternity is incidental."\nMichael Moore, associate director of Ashton, said Weatherly's closing is part of a bigger plan that has been in effect for several years.\n"For a while we've been working on trying to do a campus rebuilding project to improve our residence halls," Moore said.\nWeatherly, a residence hall that caters specifically to students over 21 has been slated to close for years.\n"For the last couple of years Ashton-Weatherly has been targeted as a building that we wouldn't be housing students in anymore," Moore said.\nConnors said the plan is to demolish Weatherly and build newer facilities in its place.\nStudents living in Weatherly were notified as early as last year that the building would be closed and members of the Weatherly community would be moved to Ashton-Stemple, Moore said.\n"Any time we plan we always have to keep students in mind," Moore said.\nHowever, it could be months before Weatherly's fate has been decided.\n"We actually had one conversation with the trustees at the April meeting about our plans and they asked us to do a little more in-depth analysis and come back to them in the fall," Connors said.\nKappa Sigma's members would have a resident assistant in Weatherly, Moore said.\n"We're going to hire an R.A. who is a member of the chapter to serve as an R.A. in that building," Moore said.\nKappa Sigma President Lev Wismer said the idea to move the fraternity into Weatherly was based on continuing unity within the fraternity, despite the construction of a new house. The new house will be built on North Jordan Avenue -- they currently reside on the North Jordan extension. \n"We wanted to have the opportunity to have a large group living together so we can better continue our experience as a fraternity," Wismer said.\nWismer said only 40 members will be taking the opportunity to continue to live as a community, and the remaining members of Kappa Sigma will be living off campus until their new house is complete.\nConnors said this isn't the first time a fraternity has moved into a residence hall. As recently as four years ago, members of Alpha Omega Pi sorority resided in dorms together under similar circumstances.\n"It's an opportunity for them to keep their chapter in one location as a group, but all residence hall rules apply to them," Connors said. "They're treated just like other students."\n-- Contact Campus Editor Karen Green at kamgreen@indiana.edu.