Daniel Sakow, Senior Staff Photographer

A look at life with Sigma Chi

Off the 5000 block of College Avenue, a little street called College Place leads to an area commonly known to the San Diego State community as “Greek Circle.”

With seven houses, the cul-de-sac is second only to Fraternity Row as a location that provides the largest number of SDSU Greek housing.

One house sits on the outer edge of this neighborhood. Inside, 43 Sigma Chi fraternity members eat, sleep and live together 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

For roughly $1,300 per semester, live-in members enjoy a roof over their heads and full amenities including cable, water and electricity. Two-to three-roommates per room share the 21-bedroom, three-bathroom house.

The chapter president, a required live-in position, has his own room and bathroom. One of the two remaining bathrooms is a communal bathroom, while the third bathroom is reserved for women.

Sigma Chi is the only fraternity house on campus with its own meal plan. For $700 a semester, a full-time cook serves hot-plate dishes Monday through Friday for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Travis Lubinsky, a business administration sophomore and Sigma Chi’s new president said that he finds this system more nutritional because of the set schedule and that he enjoys the opportunity to bond with his brothers.

“Dinner is served at 6 (p.m.) and goes for an hour,” Lubinsky said. “There are about 40 of us every night, and we pull up four long tables and sit and eat.”

Lubinsky, who has lived in the house for the past year, said that the experience is unique because there is always something to do and someone to do it with.

“We have fundraisers, poker tournaments and organized paintball competitions,” Lubinsky said. “We play basketball and watch the same shows, like The O.C.”

Sigma Chi members recently became obsessed with “FIFA Soccer 2006,” one of today’s most popular Xbox video games, he said.

Sigma Chi outgoing president James Poet said that aside from the typical roommate confrontations, the brothers get along well.

“We don’t really have fights over things,” Poet said. “There’s more of a problem when it’s three or four in the morning and your next-door neighbor is playing his music so loud you can hear it through the paper-thin walls.”

For parties, however, no one objects to the loud music, he said.

“We usually have parties with other Greeks, and we don’t let strangers in,” Poet said. “It can (still) get pretty crazy, but I think partying together with other Greeks makes it a more respectful atmosphere.

“The entire Greek system has a vested interest in itself, so when people come over they don’t try to trash our house like I’ve seen at other (non-Greek) house parties.”