Phi Kappa Psi exists because of a life changing bond formed through a crisis.
In the Fall of 1850, there was a typhoid fever outbreak at Jefferson College in Canonsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many students left the campus due to the outbreak. Of those students who remained, about one fourth not only contracted this contagious disease, but died from it. Two freinds, William Henry Letterman an Charles Page Thomas Moore selflessly decided to remain on campus and help their fellow students back to health. Through all of the death and suffering that they witnessed on a daily basis, they formed a bond similar to that of soldiers at war.
They discussed their experience, and how it changed them. The idea of a fraternity dedicated to the "Great Joy of Serving Others" took time to form. They also decided that it would be a national fraternity. When they convened for their first meeting, on February 19, 1852, they formed the Pennsylvania Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi.
Phi Psi was the first fraternity founded that was neither a literary society, smoking club, nor in opposition to existing fraternal groups. The higher aims of Phi Psis founders earned this fraternity the nickname of "The Noble Fraternity" from other fraternities.
Phi Psi was also the first fraternity founded as a national fraternity.
Due to the life changing experiences of the Founders, trivial things that were once important ceased to be. Most fraternities had constitutional clauses that restricted membership to a highly specific denomination of Christianity. Phi Psi was nonsectarian, and the first fraternity to be so.
While many of Phi Psis early members would become Presbyterian Ministers, they were fraternity brothers with members of not only all denominations of Protestantism, but also with Catholics, Jews, Shintoists, and other religions. This was still in the 1850s.
Phi Psi even chartered at Columbia University with a majority Jewish group; a quarter of a century before the first Jewish fraternity was founded.
This early level of ethnic tolerance has continued to keep Phi Psi distinguished. In the early 1950s, the new swimming coach at Indiana University wanted to recruit top flight swimmers from California who happened to be Asian. He believed that the easiest way to assimilate these men into IU's student life was through fraternities. He called a meeting with his swimmers who were in fraternities. When asked if their fraternities would receive Asian members, only Phi Psi answered in the affirmative. Soon, Phi Psi dominated the IU swim team. In 1972, thanks to several brothers, especially Mark Spitz, if Phi Kappa Psi was an independent nation at the Olympics, we would have been third in Gold Medals.
Phi Psi was a leader of the interfraternity movement before it really existed. One of our brothers was a Chemistry Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where we already had a successful chapter. Dr. Edgar Fahs Smith was also the editor of our national magazine, and subscribed to the magazines of many other national fraternities. One fraternity, Alpha Tau Omega, was experiencing difficulty expanding in the North due to prejudice against this Southern fraternity. In 1881, Dr. Smith recruited a group that successfully petitioned ATO. Out this group of Penn ATOs, several new chapters would be formed. This was in an era when a few other national fraternities were actively stealing chapters from others.
The lore of Phi Psi runs deep. Five of our brothers served in the U.S. Senate... at the same time, and while another Phi Psi was U.S. Attorney General and another was the President! The Father of the U.S. Airforce, Gen. Billy Mitchell was a Phi Psi. The founder of the CIA's predecessor organization, the OSS, Gen. William "Wild Bill" Donovan was a Phi Psi and the only American to receive this nation's 4 highest honors; the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and the National Security Medal. Gen. Donovan also received a Purple Heart. In fact, this 87 chapter national fraternity has a list of prominent alumni that easily rivals that of any fraternity of any size.
Phi Psi is also unique in that our board of directors, the Executive Council, has an undergraduate majority. Phi Psi's commitment to the development of undergraduate excellence does not end here. Phi Kappa Psi now has the third largest endowment of any fraternity, and the largest on a per chapter or per capita basis. At the current rate of growth, Phi Psi will have the largest in three years. Phi Psi also awards more scholarship dollars than any other national fraternity.
And one of the more recent developments, is the "
Cabo Alpha Leadership Academy." This Phi Psi hotel and conference center is in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Signing off from New York City, where the billionaire mayor is a Phi Psi...