Sigma Chi
Ripon
WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE EPSILON LAMBDA CHAPTER OF
SIGMA CHI AT RIPON COLLEGE
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The history of Sigma Chi at Ripon College began with the establishment of a local fraternity named, Omega Sigma Chi in 1915. In 1954-55 the college decided to invite national fraternities on campus. The college president at that time was Dr. Clark Kuebler. He was a Sigma Chi as well as a Significant Sig. Dr. Kuebler assisted the "Omega men" in their quest for a Sigma Chi charter. A charter was granted on September 17, 1955. The chapter first occupied the building known as Smith Hall before moving into the current chapters' housing arrangements in Brockway Hall.
Story
The Epsilon Lambda chapter of Sigma Chi Fraternity is located at Ripon College.
Since our chapter’s local founding in 1955 we have been active on campus and throughout the Ripon community. As leaders in the Ripon community, we develop our members through a balance of social events, intramural sports, high academic standards, philanthropy, and community services.
Changing the Culture
Through values-based leadership programming, academic excellence, community service and philanthropic giving, today’s Sigma Chi reflects the values and principles that inspired our founders in 1855 while leading the fraternal shift away from the rebellious, Animal House portrayal of Fraternities in media at large.
"One, and the main, aim and object of Sigma Chi has been, and is, to develop and train broad-minded men who can recognize the wholeness of things and who are not bound down to a contracted, eight-by-ten notion of exclusiveness. There is an absolute necessity for such men."
Benjamin P. Runkle
MIAMI (OHIO) 185
Our seven Founders recognized that a principle-driven lifestyle should be paramount in an individual’s lifelong quest to achieve progressive development, and that the world in which they lived had a great need for ethical leaders whose core principles were based on the possession of remarkable character.
Sigma Chi’s story has been building on itself since 1855 and, indeed, the Fraternity has changed dramatically since that time. When those seven college students gathered together for the first time, there were no telephones, no automobiles, no planes, no Internet, not even electricity — essentially, their lives were devoid of any of the modern amenities we are used to. Yet, somehow, they prospered.
About the Fraternity
In 1855, seven young men, Benjamin Piatt Runkle, Thomas Cowan Bell, William Lewis Lockwood, Isaac M. Jordan, Daniel William Cooper, Franklin Howard Scobey and James Parks Caldwell, wanted something better in a fraternity during their collegiate experience, and from that recognition, a dream was born — the fraternity of Sigma Chi.
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Seven young men set the foundation for a lifelong course of development that has since provided more than 300,000 men with the structure to understand how to make a positive influence on the world.
The ranks of Sigma Chis now include titans of industry, celebrities, political leaders, husbands, fathers, brothers and many more. Each member brings so many different characteristics to the world, yet we all bring the same endowment of character that our world today so badly needs.
Principle-driven leaders are needed now more than ever before, and the fact that Sigma Chi makes a concerted effort to contribute to the development of such men is what makes the Fraternity so important today.