About Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi is a brotherhood with roots in the collegiate experience that engenders a lifelong commitment to strive to achieve true friendship, equal justice and the fulfillment of learning as part of our overall responsibilities to the broader communities in which we live. We achieve these ideals through the practice of character qualities embodied in our Ritual, and continuously reaffirm our purpose through the observance of Sigma Chi’s Governing Laws and through adherence to the decisions of our legislative assemblies, which empower and direct our leadership. In addition to its 217 undergraduate chapters and 145 alumni chapters, Sigma Chi is comprised of four operational entities: the Sigma Chi Fraternity, the Sigma Chi Foundation, the Risk Management Foundation and Constantine Capital Inc.

The fundamental purpose of the Sigma Chi Fraternity is the cultivation, maintenance and accomplishment of the ideals of friendship, justice and learning within our membership. Sigma Chi Fraternity best serves its purpose by developing, implementing and monitoring programs that foster leadership, build character and promote positive relationship skills which, in turn, enable our members to become productive and caring participants in their families, colleges and communities.

Sigma Chi’s core values are friendship, justice and learning. Our vision is to become the preeminent collegiate leadership development organization—aligned, focused and living our core values. Our mission is to develop values-based leaders committed to the betterment of character, campus and community.

For more information about the Sigma Chi fraternity, please visit sigmachi.org

The History of Sigma Chi

Sigma Chi was founded by seven college men at Miami University in Oxford, OH, on June 28, 1855. The founding of Sigma Chi was the outgrowth of the seven founders' desire to perpetuate the ideals of true friendship, equal justice, and the fulfillment of learning. These seven men believed that friendship among members sharing a common belief in these ideals and possessing different temperaments, talents, and convictions was superior to friendship among members having like character. They further believed that genuine friendship could be maintained without surrendering the principle of individuality or sacrificing one's personal judgment.

Six of the seven founders were members of an existing fraternity at Miami. They were motivated to start a new fraternal order by the injustice and lack of respect for their opinions that resulted from a disagreement within the chapter of which they were members. That chapter consisted of twelve members and it was evenly divided on an issue of principle. Six of the members, led by the president of the chapter, supported one of the members for a position in a campus literary society. The dissenting six, eventual founders of Sigma Chi, refused to vote for the brother because they believed he lacked the required poetic abilities. As a matter of principle, the founders of Sigma Chi refused to allow this fraternal association to carry more weight than matters of character or credentials. Both sides refused to budge, setting the stage for several disagreements in the ensuing months.

In February of 1855 the president of the chapter and an alumnus of the fraternity met with the six dissenting members in a final attempt to resolve the situation. The president and the alumnus subsequently determined that justice would best be served with the formal expulsion of two of the dissenting members. They also determined that the other four should be chastised but could remain in the chapter. At that point, the six dissenting members disaffiliated from the chapter and joined together with one other student to found the Sigma Chi Fraternity. The Fraternity has grown to an International brotherhood adhering to the principles which guided it's founding. Sigma Chi consists of more than 225 undergraduate chapters in North America and numerous alumni groups worldwide.