are they starting from the ground up or absorbing alpha epsilon? i'm an alumni and i would be curious if they are stacking and bringing two new sororities in since tri-delta was disbanded.

Kappa has been chosen to colonize, too!

i did a little research and a-e-phi is extending to alpha epsilon. that means KKG AND AEPHI are coming to calpolyslo. it's nice to see there is such a demand that they would do something like this.

Kappa will be colonizing Cal Poly SLO in 2013!

New Jersey Institute of Technology -- Phi Sigma Kappa Earns Charter

LaneSig and others:

Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity chartered on March 3, 2012 becoming the Alpha Octaton Chapter. The last national fraternity to charter on the NJIT campus was in 1999.

The newly-chartered chapter, or individual members of it, received campus awards. From the same NJIT posting (below), which lists many other awards received by GLOs, not just Phi Sigma Kappa:

http://www.njit.edu/greeklife/

Congratulations to all of the Recipients of the 2012 Fraternity & Sorority Achievement Award Winners

Individual Awards
Greek Scholar Award - Andrew Izquierdo of Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity
Community Servant Award - AJ Panzica of Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity
Fraternity Man of the Year- Rocco Cerami of Phi Sigma Kappa Fraternity

Advisor Awards
National Chapter Advisor of the Year - David Deaton, Advisor to the Alpha Octaton Chapter of Phi Sigma Kappa

> Alpha Octaton Chapter

Awesome success for Phi Sigma Kappa

Phi Sigma Kappa uses terms like Deuteron, Octaton, etc. for chapters.

Where do these terms come from?

As far as I know, they've been part of the traditions of that fraternity for a long time. The terms come from Greek-language words , of course. It's the Phi Sig equivalent of other GLOs' "Alpha Alpha, Alpha Beta ...... and on through , say, Theta Delta, Theta Epsilon . . . "

Octaton would be the ninth "run," I think (counting single-letter chapters and on through a Septaton sequence). Naturally there are some exceptions to completely strict adherence to this general rule, just as many other GLOs have a quirk or two in their otherwise orderly chapter naming systems. And don't get me started on Alpha Omicron Pi, which does it their own way, and more power to them.

:cool:

Don't forget Chi Omega with their backwards naming and Kappa Delta has some quirky disordered naming IIRC.

We are "quirkless", I think. It's all laid out in advance. Alpha through Omega, then Alpha Alpha through Alpha Omega, then Beta Alpha through Beta Omega. The cool thing is that since there are 24 Greek letters, each "25th" chapter starts a new letter. Number 25 is Alpha Alpha, the 50th chapter is Beta Beta. Whichever colony charters first next year will be #175 Eta Eta...probably UConn.

Alpha Gamma Delta is partially quirky.

At the beginning there were five provinces. Once Alpha through Omega were used, the chapters were named by province. (Alpha = New England & Atlantic Provinces to Ohio; Beta = Indiana, Illinois, upper Midwest; Gamma = southeast; Delta = West; Epsilon = Missouri west to Colorado, south to Texas.) My chapter was the first double-letter chapter. Because it was in Epsilon Province, it is Epsilon Alpha rather than Alpha Alpha. Once the original province letters were used they went to the next letter in the Greek alphabet. And now our new chapters in the original Alpha province begin with Lambda. We haven't begun the Etas or Iotas yet and are only recently into the Kappas. If we'd gone straight through (=no quirks) we'd be at, ummm, somewhere in the Etas.

Original province Alpha -- Zeta -- Lambda
Original province Beta -- Eta
Original province Gamma -- Theta -- Nu
Original province Delta -- Iota
Original province Epsilon -- Kappa

KD's chapter names are pretty standard now. It was just in the early days when chapters might have taken the names of their original locals or initials of people (or a fraternity in one case, Kappa Alpha at Florida State) influential in their founding.

We did skip over Eta Omicron and Eta Pi recently, I suppose to save those chapters from any embarrassment. Have any other sororities done that?

That's what I was remembering. :D

We skipped Epsilon Pi because that is our secret-est motto. Our (now-resolved) chapter at Marietta was Alpha Phi, pronounced "Fye." We have Delta Gamma, Delta Zeta, Theta Chi, Theta Xi, Kappa Alpha, and Kappa Delta chapters.

DPhiE chapter names
 

We started with single letter chapters,Alpha- Omega and then followed the order of Delta, Phi, Epsilon Chapters and begin back with Alphas.
-Delta Alpha-Delta Omega
-Phi Alpha-Phi Omega
- Epsilon Alpha-Epsilon Omega
-Alpha Alpha, etc. We are currently nearing end of the double letter chapters in the Gamma's and will start the Zeta chapters soon.

Maybe it is just because it is early and my brain isn't working yet. I don't see how those would be embarrassing.

If the chapter name were Eta Omicron, you'd be walking around with HO on the guard attached to your pin. And if your chapter became known as the fat-girl chapter, it would probably have "Ate a Pie" used against it by the childish on campus.

In the list of chapters chartered, please include Alpha Xi Delta's Iota Rho Chapter at DePaul University in Feb.

One sorority completely skipped over the Eta series, if I remember correctly.

The only quirk we have is that there are two colonies who got their designation, but the second one was initiated prior to the first, so their letters are out of order.


ETA: Happy Founders Day to Alpha Delta Pi!!!

^^^^ Yes, Alpha Xi Delta completely skipped the Eta series.

Good to see another "quirkless" group. Alpha Phi Omega does it exactly the same way (though we'll skip Alpha Phi Omega chapter when we get there). We are up somewhere around Alpha Eta Delta now. (Unfortunately, the 25th rule gets harder to remember when you get up to the three letter patterns, Omega Omega is 600, but 625 is Alpha Beta Alpha and 650 is Alpha Gamma Beta).

I'm pretty sure that in the next 4-5 years, we're going to have an Eta Omicron and Eta Pi chapter...I just can't seen anything messing with the traditional pattern. To acknowledge what Eta Omicron stands for in current slang vernacular would probably be viewed as a short term concern that would be awkward to explain/acknowledge 100 years from now. My feeling is that the slang association will be ignored with dignity at the chapter that carries that name. We shall see after a few more expansions, but that's my prediction. I'm also predicting very few members at that chapter will buy the chapter guard. ;)

This is the exact explaination that Eta Sigma was given a couple of years ago from HQ.

So true. I feel like our dearly-loved "mode" has taught us a good lesson in concepts that stand the test of time. Talk about a term that has completely and totally disappeared from the lexicon, except for this one instance.

Or.... EVERYONE will buy the chapter guard!! I could see it turned into a point of endearment.

ASA did too. The only one that starts with Eta is the Eta Eta chapter, which has been around since about 1920 (before they got silly about such things).

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=29282

ZTA does the alphabetical chapter names, however we totally skipped Epsilon Alpha thru Epsilon Omega. I heard that the President serving at the time that the Epsilon whatevers would have been founded did not think that it "flowed well". Whether that meant lookwise on the chapter guards, or pleasing to the ear. Talk about quirky if it is true!

> Or.... EVERYONE will buy the chapter guard!! I could see it turned into a point of endearment.

Kind of like "Boilermakers"

As far as Acacia goes, we have a fair amount of latitude with the chapter guard. Some chapters spell out the college. We use Hebrew letters for some of our older chapters, but some of the later chapters use them informally. But Hebrew reads right to left, so you have to remember that a pair of letters goes in the right order! :) [or to use a Hebrew smilie] (:

Alpha Phi named chapters Alpha through Omega, skipped Alpha Alpha through Alpha Omega, then went on from Beta Alpha through Beta Omega, Gamma Alpha through Gamma Omega and so on. We use Alpha Lambda for our Alumnae Initiate's chapter designation. I suppose we didn't want to wind up having the Alpha Phi chapter of Alpha Phi :)

I wish we could get back our Alpha Xi chapter of Alpha Xi Delta! (UCLA)

Chapter names: I know I've said this before, but Sigma Chi skipped every other Greek letter when naming the first chapters. So our 2nd chapter was Gamma, not Beta; 3rd was Epsilon, not Delta; Eta was 4th, so on, so on.....

Our founders skipped the letters because they had a big rivalry with Beta Theta Pi. They didn't want to have a "Beta" chapter. They eventually did begin to use the skipped letters and did name a Beta chapter at the College of Wooster (Ohio). But, since Wooster no longer has fraternities, there will not be any Beta Sigma Chis.

Do you pronounce Phi as "fee" or "fie" when it's the name of a chapter?

You know, I really can't say for sure. Let me see if I can find out, good question! :D

So what is Alpha Omicron Pi's chapter-naming system?

Each chapter creates their own chapter name. For example my chapter is Nu Beta, named for one our chapter's founders Nancy Beasley and it means Victorious Life in Greek. Of course our first chapter was Alpha at Barnard but then after that they really aren't in any type of order.

This wouldn't surprise me at all. I think I've heard of other GLOs doing something similar.

ZTA's Alpha Xi chapter at Indiana U. is pronounced "zee" while our Zeta Xi chapter at Georgia Southern is pronounced "zie" (like tie). I have no idea why that is.

And http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=80554.

Beta Theta Pi was invited to colonize at the College of Charleston(SC) this coming Fall. Congratulations and good luck to the new colony.

I could be completely wrong on this but I have heard some letters are pronounced differently when they come after a vowel. So that could apply in this case.

That's a Greek Urban Legend with no basis in fact. While the pronunciation of the sounds represented by a letter can sometimes change depending on the letter before or after it, the name of the letter does not change. The difference between Ф as fie and Ф as fee is based on whether an organization chooses to use the Greek (and British) pronunciation (fee) or the American pronunciation (fie). Same thing with Ξ.