Anyone know of any other current Kappa Sigma expansionary activity?

[stufield]

More colony and chapter losses:

As stated in my February 18th posting, the colony at Bellarmine University was recently closed.

Also, the SEC has also recently closed Gamma-Kappa Chapter at the University of Oklahoma for unspecified "rules violations". Gamma-Kappa had been in continuous existence since receiving its charter in June, 1906, and is the chapter of former Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens.

In its customary 'head in the sand', 'we never post anything negative', 'even though you are fraternity members we don't think you have the right to know' modus operandi, IMH has not announced the Oklahoma closure or explained what rules were violated. Gamma-Kappa has just quietly been removed from the lists of active chapters and colonies on the Fraternity Website, as were Epsilon-Nu at Southern Mississippi and Epsilon-Theta at UCSB earlier in the school year. Likewise, of course, no announcement of the Bellarmine colony closure or reasons given; it, too, simply vanished from the lists.

In the last decade or so, the SEC has closed a number of chapters at the flagship universities of their respective States, including Gamma at LSU, Tau at Texas, Beta at Alabama/Tuscaloosa, Lambda at Tennessee/Knoxville, Alpha-Alpha at Maryland/College Park, Alpha-Delta at Penn State, Alpha-Lambda at Vermont, Alpha-Upsilon at Nebraska/Lincoln, Beta-Kappa at New Hampshire, Beta-Rho at Iowa, Delta-Gamma at Wyoming, Delta-Delta at Florida, Delta-Zeta at New Mexico, Delta-Xi at Ole Miss, Delta-Sigma at Utah, Gamma-Alpha at Oregon, Gamma-Phi at West Virgina, Gamma-Tau at Colorado, and Gamma-Upsilon at Rutgers ... an amazing number of closures of the foremost public universities in their respective States ... and I may even have missed one or two!

LSU, Texas, Alabama/Tuscaloosa, Tennessee/Knoxville, Vermont, Florida, Ole Miss, West Virgina, and Colorado have since been recolonized and rechartered, and all are apparently thriving.

Hopefully, Gamma-Kappa will spend a minimum amount of time in SEC-imposed Kappa Sig purgatory and return a stronger chapter.

Maryland/College Park, Penn State, Nebraska/Lincoln, Wyoming, Utah, and Rutgers have been recolonized and still are present colonies. Penn State and Utah have been colonies for some time now, and I would have expected them to have been rechartered by now. So they may be struggling with low membership. I sure hope not, and hope to see them rechartered before the end of the present school year.

We remain conspicuously absent at New Hampshire and Iowa. UNH is especially sad because Kappa Sigma was the first fraternity to charter there, and for many decades was one of the dominant fraternities on campus. Kappa Sig is seriously underrepresented in both New England and the Midwest, so the return of Beta-Kappa and Beta-Rho Chapters would be significant expansionary accomplishments.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by stufield

More colony and chapter losses:

As stated in my February 18th posting, the colony at Bellarmine University was recently closed.

Also, the SEC has also recently closed Gamma-Kappa Chapter at the University of Oklahoma for unspecified "rules violations". Gamma-Kappa had been in continuous existence since receiving its charter in June, 1906, and is the chapter of former Heisman Trophy winner Steve Owens.

In its customary 'head in the sand', 'we never post anything negative', 'even though you are fraternity members we don't think you have the right to know' modus operandi, IMH has not announced the Oklahoma closure or explained what rules were violated. Gamma-Kappa has just quietly been removed from the lists of active chapters and colonies on the Fraternity Website, as were Epsilon-Nu at Southern Mississippi and Epsilon-Theta at UCSB earlier in the school year. Likewise, of course, no announcement of the Bellarmine colony closure or reasons given; it, too, simply vanished from the lists.

In the last decade or so, the SEC has closed a number of chapters at the flagship universities of their respective States, including Gamma at LSU, Tau at Texas, Beta at Alabama/Tuscaloosa, Lambda at Tennessee/Knoxville, Alpha-Alpha at Maryland/College Park, Alpha-Delta at Penn State, Alpha-Lambda at Vermont, Alpha-Upsilon at Nebraska/Lincoln, Beta-Kappa at New Hampshire, Beta-Rho at Iowa, Delta-Gamma at Wyoming, Delta-Delta at Florida, Delta-Zeta at New Mexico, Delta-Xi at Ole Miss, Delta-Sigma at Utah, Gamma-Alpha at Oregon, Gamma-Phi at West Virgina, Gamma-Tau at Colorado, and Gamma-Upsilon at Rutgers ... an amazing number of closures of the foremost public universities in their respective States ... and I may even have missed one or two!

LSU, Texas, Alabama/Tuscaloosa, Tennessee/Knoxville, Vermont, Florida, Ole Miss, West Virgina, and Colorado have since been recolonized and rechartered, and all are apparently thriving.

Hopefully, Gamma-Kappa will spend a minimum amount of time in SEC-imposed Kappa Sig purgatory and return a stronger chapter.

Maryland/College Park, Penn State, Nebraska/Lincoln, Wyoming, Utah, and Rutgers have been recolonized and still are present colonies. Penn State and Utah have been colonies for some time now, and I would have expected them to have been rechartered by now. So they may be struggling with low membership. I sure hope not, and hope to see them rechartered before the end of the present school year.

We remain conspicuously absent at New Hampshire and Iowa. UNH is especially sad because Kappa Sigma was the first fraternity to charter there, and for many decades was one of the dominant fraternities on campus. Kappa Sig is seriously underrepresented in both New England and the Midwest, so the return of Beta-Kappa and Beta-Rho Chapters would be significant expansionary accomplishments.

There was a presence in New Hampshire when I was an undergrad (New Hampshire College, later Southern New Hampshire); I'm unsure when the chapter closed. There are some good stories coming out of New England; the UConn and MIT chapters have been gaining strength over the years, Northeastern has been doing well for quite a while, and my old chapter (Mu-Psi at Boston U.) had its biggest fall class ever this past fall.

That said, New England is a weird area; there are a lot of colleges (especially in Boston), but a number of them have anti-Greek administrations. Maybe that will change in time; my alma mater has become more open to Greeks over the past few years.

[stufield]

"There are some good stories coming out of New England; the UConn and MIT chapters have been gaining strength over the years, Northeastern has been doing well for quite a while, and my old chapter (Mu-Psi at Boston U.) had its biggest fall class ever this past fall."

Yes, the few chapters that we do have in New England all seem to be doing quite well. The three older Boston-area chapters (MIT, BU, and Northeastern) are all very strong (Northeastern is on of the entire Fraternity's strongest chapter, and easily the most dominant fraternity chapter at NU). Epsilon-Zeta at UConn has also been a strong chapter in recent years. The new Pi-Kappa Chapter apparently is also very strong on the Bentley College campus even though it lacks formal recognition from the school's administration and/or its IFC. Psi Chapter at the University of Maine is not as strong a chapter, but does seem to hold its own at Orono. All of which makes me wonder why the Fraternity does not have more New England chapters.

We did recently have another Boston area chapter, Omicron-Delta, at Suffolk University. It was chartered in April, 2005. But it survived for just a few months before being closed ... I heard a rumour that it was for hazing ... and I have not heard anything about any move to recolonize there. KSigkid do you know anything about the Suffolk situation?

On the positive side, Alpha-Kappa Chapter at Vermont was recently rechartered, and we now have a colony at Sacred Heart University, which is located in Bridgeport, Connecticut ... I understand it is a local fraternity, and the SHU Greek system is going [inter]national. There are other, more prominent schools in Connecticut with well-established Greek systems that would probably be preferable expansionary objectives ... the University of Hartford, Central Connecticut State, the University of New Haven [we had a short-lived colony there about15 years ago] ... but given that we presently have just the one chapter in Connecticut and so few chapters elsewhere in New England, any expansion in Connecticut is welcome. Still, only one active colony in all of New England is pretty lame.

There certainly are a number of other schools in New England with well-established Greek systems. But the Fraternity is not being proactive about expanding to any of them, and instead passively awaits inquiries from interested individuals or groups at whatever schools they happen to attend. At the very least, the Fraternity SHOULD be PROACTIVELY attempting to restore the dormant Beta-Kappa and Gamma-Delta Chapters at UNH and UMass, respectively. Kappa Sigma once had strong chapters at both those flagship schools of their respective States. Ex-NFLers Greg Landry and Milt Morin were UMass Kappa Sigs.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by stufield

"There are some good stories coming out of New England; the UConn and MIT chapters have been gaining strength over the years, Northeastern has been doing well for quite a while, and my old chapter (Mu-Psi at Boston U.) had its biggest fall class ever this past fall."

Yes, the few chapters that we do have in New England all seem to be doing quite well. The three older Boston-area chapters (MIT, BU, and Northeastern) are all very strong (Northeastern is on of the entire Fraternity's strongest chapter, and easily the most dominant fraternity chapter at NU). Epsilon-Zeta at UConn has also been a strong chapter in recent years. The new Pi-Kappa Chapter apparently is also very strong on the Bentley College campus even though it lacks formal recognition from the school's administration and/or its IFC. Psi Chapter at the University of Maine is not as strong a chapter, but does seem to hold its own at Orono. All of which makes me wonder why the Fraternity does not have more New England chapters.

We did recently have another Boston area chapter, Omicron-Delta, at Suffolk University. It was chartered in April, 2005. But it survived for just a few months before being closed ... I heard a rumour that it was for hazing ... and I have not heard anything about any move to recolonize there. KSigkid do you know anything about the Suffolk situation?

I don't know what happened to the Suffolk colony. I heard lots of good things, as I had friends and chapter brothers who were heavily involved with the colony. Then, all of a sudden, I stopped hearing updates.

Originally Posted by stufield

On the positive side, Alpha-Kappa Chapter at Vermont was recently rechartered, and we now have a colony at Sacred Heart University, which is located in Bridgeport, Connecticut ... I understand it is a local fraternity, and the SHU Greek system is going [inter]national. There are other, more prominent schools in Connecticut with well-established Greek systems that would probably be preferable expansionary objectives ... the University of Hartford, Central Connecticut State, the University of New Haven [we had a short-lived colony there about15 years ago] ... but given that we presently have just the one chapter in Connecticut and so few chapters elsewhere in New England, any expansion in Connecticut is welcome. Still, only one active colony in all of New England is pretty lame.

There certainly are a number of other schools in New England with well-established Greek systems. But the Fraternity is not being proactive about expanding to any of them, and instead passively awaits inquiries from interested individuals or groups at whatever schools they happen to attend. At the very least, the Fraternity SHOULD be PROACTIVELY attempting to restore the dormant Beta-Kappa and Gamma-Delta Chapters at UNH and UMass, respectively. Kappa Sigma once had strong chapters at both those flagship schools of their respective States. Ex-NFLers Greg Landry and Milt Morin were UMass Kappa Sigs.

Actually Sacred Heart is in Fairfield, not Bridgeport. It's a fairly large school, over 5000 people, although I'm not sure of the strength of the Greek system. I grew up in CT (and am back here for law school), but I only knew one person who ended up at Sacred Heart (he played football and didn't rush a Greek org). Central Connecticut is mostly a commuter school, so I'm not sure it's the right environment to colonize. Same thing with the University of New Haven, despite the history with the school.

Wasn't there a UMass colony recently, or at least talk of a UMass colony?

[stufield]

Thanks for the correction on the SHU location. I looked ion my Rand-McNAlly Road atlas and it appeared to me to be in Bridgeport. In fact, when I look again, it still does. But since I received your e-mail, I checked the school's website and it is indeed located in Fairfield. Interesting fact, tied in to you statement that it is a fairly large school: according to its website, SHU is the second largest Catholic university in New England. I assume that Boston College is the largest. It seems like a good school to be at. So hopefully our colony there will succeed.

CCSU may be a commuter school, but I know that Phi Delta Theta has an active chapter there. The Phi Delts are also one of several fraternities with active chapters at the University of Hartford. However, I also know that the Tekes had a chapter at CCSU,a and it closed. So the Phi Delt chapter there may or may not survive.

New Haven may also be a commute school, but Delta Chi has had a chapter there since 1981 and Sigma Chi has a chapter there as well. There are also a couple of locals.

We did have an interest group at Quinnipiac University at the beginning of the current school year (I believe it started late in the 2007-2008 school year), and I was informed by two different IMH sources that both it and Sacred Heart would be colonies before the end of 2008. Neither made it by then, but at least SHU is now a colony. I have made follow-up inquiries about the Quinnipiac group, but have not received a reply. So I don't know what is happening there.

No, unfortunately, there has been no UMass colony. There has been some talk of one in the past year or two, as the UMass administration is now actively supportive of fraternities and looking to expand the school's Greek system back to what it once was. Several fraternities closed their chapters there in the last couple of decades, but several have also returned. Unfortunately, Kappa Sigma is not one of them ... I would like to add a "yet" to that, but as I have stated on several other posts, the Fraternity is not proactive in targeting desirable schools and attempting to establish colonies there. So who knows when we might return there. I did hear that we had a small interest group there last school year. But it obviously did not develop into anything substantive.

Where are you going to law school?

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by stufield

Thanks for the correction on the SHU location. I looked ion my Rand-McNAlly Road atlas and it appeared to me to be in Bridgeport. In fact, when I look again, it still does. But since I received your e-mail, I checked the school's website and it is indeed located in Fairfield. Interesting fact, tied in to you statement that it is a fairly large school: according to its website, SHU is the second largest Catholic university in New England. I assume that Boston College is the largest. It seems like a good school to be at. So hopefully our colony there will succeed.

CCSU may be a commuter school, but I know that Phi Delta Theta has an active chapter there. The Phi Delts are also one of several fraternities with active chapters at the University of Hartford. However, I also know that the Tekes had a chapter at CCSU,a and it closed. So the Phi Delt chapter there may or may not survive.

New Haven may also be a commute school, but Delta Chi has had a chapter there since 1981 and Sigma Chi has a chapter there as well. There are also a couple of locals.

We did have an interest group at Quinnipiac University at the beginning of the current school year (I believe it started late in the 2007-2008 school year), and I was informed by two different IMH sources that both it and Sacred Heart would be colonies before the end of 2008. Neither made it by then, but at least SHU is now a colony. I have made follow-up inquiries about the Quinnipiac group, but have not received a reply. So I don't know what is happening there.

No, unfortunately, there has been no UMass colony. There has been some talk of one in the past year or two, as the UMass administration is now actively supportive of fraternities and looking to expand the school's Greek system back to what it once was. Several fraternities closed their chapters there in the last couple of decades, but several have also returned. Unfortunately, Kappa Sigma is not one of them ... I would like to add a "yet" to that, but as I have stated on several other posts, the Fraternity is not proactive in targeting desirable schools and attempting to establish colonies there. So who knows when we might return there. I did hear that we had a small interest group there last school year. But it obviously did not develop into anything substantive.

Where are you going to law school?

I'm at law school in Connecticut.

You're correct, BC is the largest Catholic university in New England (and completely anti-Greek, for that matter).

I had heard about Greek orgs at CCSU, but just coming from my personal knowledge about schools, neither struck me as places where Greek life would flourish. If a Kappa Sigma chapter can start and thrive on either of those campuses, that's a situation where I wouldn't mind being completely wrong.

[chicostateksig]

Kappa Sigma to Return to UC-Davis

Dear Brother ,

I am excited to inform you that this fall, the Kappa Sigma Fraternity is looking to begin re-colonizing the Beta-Phi Chapter at UC-Davis

As a resident of California, we are hoping that you could help this cause by referring any student you know who might be attending the school and who would make a great Kappa Sigma Brother. We hope that you will consider friends from your hometown, your place of work, family, church or any other connections you may have to help us identify outstanding young men to be founding fathers of this historic chapter.

Kappa Sigma’s Area Recruitment Managers, Blake Baxter and Matt Rippetoe will be on campus in late February and March if there are any students you can put us in touch with please refer them to me. You can reach me at the below email/phone number should you have any potential rush guests we can speak with, or if you are interested in working with any of these future chapters as a volunteer alumnus advisor.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Fraternally and AEKDB,

Carl Reisch
Director of Recruitment and Expansion
Kappa Sigma Fraternity



Here is an email i got from HQ, Davis will come back this fall.

[stufield]

I don't know when it happened or anything about the circumstances of it, but I see that Epsilon-Phi Chapter at Texas Tech University is also no longer included in the lists of active chapters and colonies on the Fraternity Website. Epsilon-Phi has long been one of our largest and strongest chapters. The SEC keeps closing chapters, and never announcing or reporting anything about those closures. The chapters just disappear from the lists, and if one is not paying attention, one would never even know. There are, of course, many good things about Kappa Sigma. But communication from the SEC and IMH to membership is not one of them. Kappa Sigs are among the most poorly informed of all fraternity memberships. It has been that way for years ... decades ... and is very frustrating.

If anyone happens to know anything about the TTU or Oklahoma closures, or any other recent chapter or colony closures, or about any current interest groups or imminent colonies, please post, because IMH certainly isn't going to provide any information.

[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.

[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.

[stufield]

I found the following article regarding the Fraternity's planned return to Millikin Univeristy, located in Decatur, Illinois, next Fall:

http://www.thedeconline.com/article.php?id=363