Anyone know of any other current Kappa Sigma expansionary activity?

[stufield]

Originally Posted by KsigAkron

Our colony here at the University of Akron will be getting installed on April 4th. We have around 40 members. Currently we are assisting the Epsilon-Rho colony at Kent State, hopfully they can become a chapter in late spring or early fall.

Thanks for the update on your colony. We are very pleased that your petition for a charter has been accepted, and that your chapter installation date has been set. Another active chapter in Ohio, where Kappa Sigma is seriously underrepresented with only four active chapters whereas most of the other major fraternities have well over ten, is most welcome.

Have you been advised yet what your Greek letter chapter designation is going to be? I would think it will be Pi-Pi or Pi-Rho, as Pi-Omicron has been assigned to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the next colony to be chartered; I would assume that your colony is to be the next one, or the second next one to receive its charter after UCCS.

What can you advise us about the fraternity system at Akron at this time? What other fraternities presently have chapters there? Which of them are strong, which, if any, are struggling? How does your approximately 40 members compare to the other fraternities? Have you developed a stronger rivalry with any particular fraternity compared to all the others?

What can you advise about the Epsilon-Rho colony? How is it doing?

[KsigAkron]

Originally Posted by stufield

Thanks for the update on your colony. We are very pleased that your petition for a charter has been accepted, and that your chapter installation date has been set. Another active chapter in Ohio, where Kappa Sigma is seriously underrepresented with only four active chapters whereas most of the other major fraternities have well over ten, is most welcome.

Have you been advised yet what your Greek letter chapter designation is going to be? I would think it will be Pi-Pi or Pi-Rho, as Pi-Omicron has been assigned to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, the next colony to be chartered; I would assume that your colony is to be the next one, or the second next one to receive its charter after UCCS.

What can you advise us about the fraternity system at Akron at this time? What other fraternities presently have chapters there? Which of them are strong, which, if any, are struggling? How does your approximately 40 members compare to the other fraternities? Have you developed a stronger rivalry with any particular fraternity compared to all the others?

What can you advise about the Epsilon-Rho colony? How is it doing?

Yesterday I found out that we will be the Pi-Rho Chapter.

Basically the fraternity system at Akron is very weak, there are 12 chapters. Right now the average chapter size is about 30, some as low as 12 members. The University has about 26,000 students, but with it being a high commuter school it only has 3% of the students in Greek Life.

We have several rivalries on campus, due to a couple members who have pledged other fraternities but quit before initiation. Also, some of the chapters on campus are worried that we are hurting recruitment for the Greek System, which we know is not true at all.

As for Epsilon-Rho, they are a very strong colony, but they really need to work on recruitment. We are trying to get them ready to come out strong next fall because this spring they did not come out strong at all.

[stufield]

Originally Posted by KsigAkron

Yesterday I found out that we will be the Pi-Rho Chapter.

KSAkron:

Thank you for the prompt reply.

Interesting that your chapter is going to be designated Pi-Rho. The next chapter to be installed is the present colony at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Somebody from that colony has posted that their chapter is to be designated Pi-Omicron, which makes perfect sense given that the most recently chartered chapter is Pi-Xi at Colorado State University. The Greek alphabet goes ... Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, ... So if your chapter is going to be Pi-Rho, that would mean that some other colony is going to be chartered after UCCS and before your Akron colony ... unless, of course, the powers that be in the Fraternity have decided not to use Pi-Pi because they think that other groups on whatever campus the chapter it would be on would make fun of it, calling it Pee-Pee.

If that sounds ridiculous to you, don't laugh too hard. The Fraternity has resorted to such silliness twice before. First of all, it skipped the entire Eta series of chapters ... the only fraternity that has ever done so. After the Epsilon-Omega chapter was chartered at Georgia State University, the powers that be at the time decided to skip using a Zeta series in honour of mother Zeta chapter at the University of Virginia and to skip using an Eta series for what it called "euphonic" reasons. Then, even goofier, in both the Mu and Nu series of chapters, the powers that be at the time decided not to use the Mu-Mu, Mu-Nu, Mu-Pi, Mu-Chi, Nu-Mu, Nu-Nu, Nu-Pi, and Nu-Chi chapter designations, again for "euphonic" reasons, and again the only fraternity ever to engage in such nonsense.

So the Fraternity may be skipping the Pi-Pi designation. If not, I wonder what other colony is being chartered before the Akron colony, and thus receiving the Pi-Pi designation: Academy of Art? Alaska Anchorage? New Mexico Tech? New Orleans? Salisbury? Does anybody know?

[stufield]

Originally Posted by KsigAkron

Basically the fraternity system at Akron is very weak, there are 12 chapters. Right now the average chapter size is about 30, some as low as 12 members. The University has about 26,000 students, but with it being a high commuter school it only has 3% of the students in Greek Life.

We have several rivalries on campus, due to a couple members who have pledged other fraternities but quit before initiation. Also, some of the chapters on campus are worried that we are hurting recruitment for the Greek System, which we know is not true at all.

KSAkron:

Thanks also for the somewhat informative reply regarding the Akron fraternity system.

What are the other 12 fraternities (or 11, if you were counting Kappa Sigma as one of the 12)? And which are the largest, and, more importantly, which have as few members as 12?

If there were only a set number of young men looking to join a fraternity, and a new fraternity joined the system, be it Kappa Sigma or any other fraternity, and unless that fraternity was limiting its membership to a specific group of students, such as just Agriculture or Engineering students, or just those of the Catholic or Jewish religion, then that new fraternity would have a negative effect on the pledge numbers of the other, already established fraternities. Such possible negative effect on their membership numbers is often the principal reason why established fraternities and sororities frequently oppose the expansion of the Greek system on their campuses. The argument is not without merit on some campuses where interest in the Greek system is not that strong. The counter-argument, however, and hopefully one that will apply to Kappa Sigma at the University of Akron, is that a dynamic new fraternity could bring a whole new group of young men into the Greek system who would not otherwise have been interested in joining a fraternity, who, in turn, interest their friends, thus increasing the total number of young men in fraternities on that campus, rather than simply dividing the same number of men among the previous fraternities and a new one.

[KsigAkron]

Chapters at Akron:
Alpha Sigma Phi
Kappa Sigma
Lonestar (Local)
Theta Chi
FIJI
SAE
Phi Delta Theta
Phi Kappa Tau
TKE
Lambda Chi Alpha
Phi Sigma Kappa
Sigma Nu

We are the largest on campus with 40 members, Alpha Sig has 38.

The smallest on campus is Phi Kappa Tau with only 12 members, then Sigma Nu and Lonestar have 15 members.