Our House & History

Founded in 1991, the Zeta Mu chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta is MIT's fourth Panhellenic sorority.

With a sorority house on campus, the Theta house occupies a prime piece of real estate at the start of ''dorm row'' between McCormick and Baker. Home to 40 sisters, it's also a place where the entire chapter can stop by for a snack between classes, study with each other and friends in our quiet study rooms, or just catch up on the latest episode of Gossip Girl.

The Stats

7 doubles, each with a private bath.
26 singles
2 waffle irons
Enough bakeware to feed a small country
2 conference study rooms, 1 library
Kitchens on every floor, and easy access to Maseeh, McCormick, and Baker dining

Building History

The building we now know as simply ''the House'' was originally erected in the early 1900s as the 83-bed Charlesgate Hospital. In 1940, it was bought by the Catholic archdiocese of Boston on behalf of the Daughters of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, who rechristened it the Sancta Maria Hospital and continued to run the hospital even as the MIT campus began to rise around it . In 1964, with the nuns looking to expand to a larger location, the brick-and-stone building overlooking the Charles was sold to MIT for use as a students' infirmary.

It remained in that capacity until 1983, when the building was gutted and renovated into a dormitory for female graduate students at a then-cost of over $1 million. As the Tech wrote, the unusual shape of the building means every room is different. "People have tremendous freedom of choice," said Assistant Dean for Student Affairs Peter H. Brown. "No two rooms on any floor will be the same." In honor of a major benefactor and supporter of women pursuing graduate studies, the building was then formally renamed Ida Flansburgh Green Hall. In fact, her portrait still hangs in the front hall!

A Chapter House

In the fall of 2001, 11 years after the chapter's charter, some sisters rented the annex of Sigma Phi Epsilon to live together for the 2001-2002 school year. Although this was not an official Theta facility, it helped our chapter get used to what having a house of our own would be like, and showed MIT that our chapter was serious about acquiring a facility in the near future.

So in the spring of 2002, when MIT was attempting to rectify its problem of overcrowding in undergraduate dorms, 22 rooms in a section of a new graduate dorm were offered to us beginning in fall of 2002. Our chapter accepted this opportunity and voted to make our part of the dorm an official Theta facility.

In the summer of 2008, Green Hall officially became home to the Zeta Mu chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta. In total, 40 sisters and our awesome RA, Sumi, live in the house, broken down by class to include 8 sophomores, 14 juniors, and 18 seniors. While only 40 of us can live in the house, we're lucky in that our location allows any sister to drop by at any time, which they do, and often! Our basement boasts a 75-person capacity common room and a well-stocked pantry for pre- or post-class snacks, and you'll always find a group of sisters there working together on a pset or just hanging out. The former ''junior faculty apartment'' became our living room, first-floor kitchen, and TV room, where you're guaranteed to find at least someone playing RockBand or watching Say Yes to the Dress at any given hour of the day on our 47'' widescreen TV.