Sigma Phi Epsilon (), commonly known as SigEp, is a social college fraternity for male college students in the United States. It was founded on November 1, 1901, at Richmond College, which is now the University of Richmond, and its national headquarters remains in Richmond, Virginia. It was founded on three principles: Virtue, Diligence, and Brotherly Love (often abbreviated as "VDBL"). Sigma Phi Epsilon is one of the largest social fraternities in the United States in terms of current undergraduate membership.
History
Founding
In the fall of 1900 18-year-old divinity student Carter Ashton Jenkens, the son of a Baptist minister, transferred from Rutgers College in New Brunswick, New Jersey to Richmond College, a Baptist institution in Richmond, Virginia. At Rutgers Jenkens had been initiated into the Chi Phi fraternity. At Richmond, which did not have a chapter of Chi Phi, Jenkens was part of group of friends who were meeting regularly under the unofficial name the "Saturday Night Club". By early October, 1901, Jenkens had persuaded the group, which had grown to twelve men, to try to establish a chapter of Chi Phi at Richmond. These men were reportedly spurned by the existing fraternities on campus for their sense of morality (seven of the twelve were studying for the ordained ministry) and for their rural, middle-class backgrounds. Jenkens had convinced the others that their chapter could be different from the other fraternities on campus and assured them that Chi Phi's principles were in line with their own. The group's request for a charter, however, was met with refusal as the national fraternity felt that Richmond College was too small to host a Chi Phi chapter. Jenkens and his friends therefore founded their own fraternity.
After several secret meetings throughout October 1901, the new fraternity took shape and on November 1, 1901, the fraternity's first membership roster was publicly posted at the school. It listed the twelve founding members in this order: Carter Ashton Jenkens, Benjamin Donald Gaw, William Hugh Carter, William Andrew Wallace, Thomas Temple Wright, William Lazelle Phillips, Lucian Baum Cox, Richard Spurgeon Owens, Edgar Lee Allen, Robert Alfred McFarland, Franklin Webb Kerfoot and Thomas Vaden McCaul. After much discussion, the group settled on a secret motto and called their fraternity Sigma Phi.
Jenkens, Gaw and Phillips then met with a faculty committee to seek official recognition for their new fraternity. The faculty members were reluctant to recognize a sixth fraternity in a school with only 300 students, especially as more than half the members would be soon-to graduate seniors. Additionally, another national fraternity already existed using the name Sigma Phi. The founders responded that their new fraternity would be different from the others at Richmond, as was being founded upon biblical, egalitarian principles, and new members would quickly be taken in from the undergraduate classes to increase the new fraternity's size, and the fraternity's name was still open to debate. With these assurances from the founders, the faculty committee approved the new fraternity's request for official recognition. Shortly afterwards, the founders met and decided to rename the fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon.
Badge and colors
The colors dark red and royal purple were chosen to represent fraternity, while the golden heart was chosen as the fraternity's symbol. The principles of Virtue, Diligence and Brotherly Love, were chosen as "The Three Cardinal Principles". Jenkens also designed the fraternity's badge as a golden heart surmounted by a black enameled heart-shaped shield. Upon the shield are inscribed, in gold, the Greek-letters of the fraternity, ΣΦΕ, and below these letters, a skull and crossbones. The meaning of these symbols is divulged during the initiation ritual and known to members only. The founders' badges were designed and ordered before the addition of "Epsilon" to the fraternity's name. Thus they had only a "Sigma" and a "Phi" inscribed on the lobes of the heart, with the skull and crossbones below. A last-minute telegraph sent to the jeweler requested that an "Epsilon" be added "somewhere" on the already-complete badges, so the jeweler replaced the bottom-most gemstones with a black enameled "Epsilon." The badges of founders Carter and McCaul are on display at the Sigma Phi Epsilon headquarters at the fraternity's headquarters.