In December 1930 dean of the university James D. Hoskins explained, in an Orange and White article, that sororities would not be allowed to have chapter houses for several reasons, two of the most important being the upkeep and the promotion of more expensive social activities. The latter, he said, was not in keeping with a state university, since it might keep students away who would not come to school unless they could “stand the pace.”
In 1960 the Panhellenic Council sent a resolution to President Andy Holt detailing the “gross inadequacies of existing space” in Sophronia Strong Hall assigned to sororities. Dr. Holt appointed a committee to study the matter, and the committee reported to the board of trustees in April 1961 that “it is not the appropriate time to enter into a program of individual sorority houses” and recommended building a new panhellenic building in the future. Upon hearing the report, the board of trustees passed a resolution stating that “it is the policy of this Board that all sororities on the campus of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville be housed in a Panhellenic Building.” Construction of a panhellenic building was approved in 1962.
Alternate versions of the myth propose that (1) Sophronia Strong had given the university a million dollars on the condition that sororities not be allowed to have houses, (2) an anonymous female donor funded the Panhellenic Building and stipulated that sororities would not be able to have houses for security reasons, (3) Carolyn P. Brown was blackballed from a sorority and required outlawing sorority houses in order to obtain funds for the university center, and (4) sorority houses could not be built because any house in which 10 or more women lived was legally a brothel.