76-year-old fraternity house mom teaches ballroom dancing and sexual enlightenment
Caitlin Myers, Contributing Writer, cmyers@smu.edu
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: News
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"I'm not the one who has to pay for the damages," Lila McCurtain said once she's inside the SMU Pi Kappa Alpha house, whose hallways reek of the weekend's festivities.
After all, she's the fraternity's house mother - not its maid. She's the woman who provides, among other things, ballroom dancing lessons, sexual enlightenment and hypnosis to more than 100 fraternity members. But she is definitely not a maid.
And she's part of a dying breed. Of the nine Interfraternity Council chapters on campus, only four house mothers remain. Since the fall of 2005, SMU's Greek system has been slowly replacing these long-time staples of fraternity row with "graduate Greek house directors," a group of younger, male graduate students employed and trained by the university. Sigma Chi, Phi Delta Theta, Kappa Alpha Order and Pi Kappa Alpha are the only houses still utilizing female house directors.
"Respect for the house mother position has kind of gone away," Ryan Williams, coordinator of Student Activities and Greek Affairs, said. "It takes a very special person to do this job well."
McCurtain more than fits the bill. The divorced mother of three grown sons (and seven grandchildren) says she's not here to baby-sit. She came to the PIKE house nearly seven years ago after some convincing from her youngest son, Monte, a Greek alumnus from the University of Oklahoma. When asked by one of her men's mothers during Parent's Weekend if she took good care of her son, McCurtain replied with a prompt, "No."
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