“A Hard Shuffle To Get It All Done”: Challenges Faced By Commuter Students In Historically White Sororities And Fraternities

Abstract:Commuter students face a number of challenges, yet how they influence the experience of those who join sororities and fraternities is unknown. The purpose of this study is to explore those challenges, the strategies participants used to overcome them, and how policies and practices influenced their experience through interviews with eight alumni of historically White sororities and fraternities (HWSFs) that attended primarily commuter institutions. The findings suggest the participants in this study had many “typical” challenges associated with commuting, employed a variety of strategies to overcome those challenges, and were affected by chapter and national organization policies and practices over those at the campus level.