3115 Oak Lane

Written By: Ellie Mumaw (Panhellenic Delegate)

April 2020

3115 Oak Lane Blacksburg, Virginia is home to around thirty ZTA girls along with the rest of our chapter women. It’s not often that one is lucky enough to say they lived down the hall from thirty other girls who share the same values, but the ZTA house allows for this unique experience. Hannah Luby jumped at the opportunity to live in the house this past year for this exact reason. She says, “We’re only in college for four years and won’t have the opportunity to live with all of our best friends again.” It’s a once in a lifetime chance to shop thirty different closets, have several personal therapists, and resources to help with classes just a few doors down.

It’s common for people to compare living to the house to dorm life, but this is far from true. Hannah claimed people in her freshman year dorm were very closed off, whereas living in the house every girl had their door open and this provided a different level of closeness. This past year’s house mom, similar to an RA, was Isabel Perry. She mentions that the house has “a fully functioning kitchen with anything you’d need for cooking or baking, peaceful study spots like the sisterhood room and the study, along with a giant tv with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and cable.” I know for sure that Newman Hall didn’t have all of these things to offer during my freshman year on campus!

A majority of our girls choose to live in the house their junior or senior year of school. Caileigh Mclaine transferred from East Carolina University to complete her junior year at Virginia Tech. Caileigh opted to live in the ZTA house and wasn’t expecting a very easy transition. She said, “The second day at Tech I left my door open and every girl came by to introduce themselves and invited me to go out with them. Being in the same living space forced me to get to know everyone and they were all super welcoming.” She explained that her experience in ZTA at Tech has been very positive and the house girls are the reason her experience stayed that way.

Even though girls live in the house towards the end of their college experience, it’s not uncommon that we start to gauge one’s interest towards living in the house early on. Grace Williams, our current house manager, recently put out a survey for the new member class and said, “The amount of new member interest in living in the house made me so happy! I’m glad girls are excited to live with their sisters because I know they will have the time of their lives!”

Rising junior, Julia DeBrosse will be living in the house in the fall and says, “I have heard from older girls that living in the house was their best year of college. You get ready for date party with everyone, have movie/bachelor nights together and just do random fun things.” Not only does the fun happen at the beginning of the night, but Hannah Luby mentioned that she loved coming home to the ZTA house at night because it always included late nights and “lots and lots of food!” She mentioned that it was common for a group of girls to run out for McFlurries (if the machine was working!) or Cook Out milkshakes. Isabel Perry said that her favorite memory from the ZTA house was her “Sunday morning recaps” with Megan Ray and Gabby Repp. “No matter what we did, whether we went out together or not, we’d always get brunch and watch TV while we recapped whatever debauchery we’d gotten into,” says Isabel. 

In a perfect parallel to Virginia Tech’s motto: “This is home” we can easily say that the ZTA house is our home away from home. For each woman, the ZTA house is where they first had a connection with another ZTA woman during their recruitment season. We all chose Zeta because our house and the girls felt like the atmosphere we wanted to come home to after a long day. The house is where each woman becomes a member, where they discover their families, and where they begin each of their weeks with chapter. The house teaches our women the importance of being there for others, which embodies one of our most important values “loyalty and commitment.” The house allows for an open space that promotes being surrounded by your support group. I am personally so thankful for the opportunities that the house has already provided for me, and I am looking forward to spending next year with my roommate Brice Call! Wish us luck…I’m sure we’re in for a jam-packed year.