History
Sigma Alpha Epsilon was founded
March 9, 1856 at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. Its eight founders
included five seniors. Noble Leslie DeVotie, John Barratt Rudulph, Nathan
Elams Cockrell, John Webb Kerr, and Wade Foster, and three juniors, Samuel
Marion Dennis, Abner Edwin Patton and Thomas Chappell Cook. Their leader was
DeVotie who had written the ritual, devised the grip and chosen the name. The
badge was designed by Rudulph. Of all existing fraternities today, Sigma Alpha
Epsilon is the only one founded in the ante-bellum South.
Founded in a time of growing
and intense sectional feeling, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, although it determined at
the outset to extend to other colleges, confined its growth to the southern
states. Extension was vigorous, however, and by the end of 1857 the Fraternity
counted seven chapters. Its first national convention met in the summer of
1858 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, with four of its eight chapters in
attendance. By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, fifteen
chapters had been established.
The Fraternity had fewer than
four hundred members when the Civil War began. Of those, 369 went to war for
the Confederacy and seven fought with the Union forces. Every member of the
chapters at Hampden-Sydney, Georgia Military Institute, Kentucky Military
Institute an d Oglethorpe University fought for the gray. Members from the
Columbian College, William and Mary and Bethel (KY) were in both armies.
Seventy members of the Fraternity lost their lives in the War, including Noble
Leslie DeVotie, who is officially recorded in the annals of the War as the
first man on either side to give his life.
The miracle in the history of
Sigma Alpha Epsilon is that it survived that great sectional conflict. when
the smoke of the battle had cleared, only one chapter, at tiny Columbian
College in Washington, D.C., survived, and it died soon thereafter.
When a few of the young
veterans returned to the Georgia Military Institute and found their little
college burned to the ground, they decided to go to Athens, Georgia, to enter
the state university there. It vas the founding of the University of Georgia
chapter at the end of 1865 that led to the Fraternity's revival. Soon other
chapters came back to life, and in 1867 the first post-war convention was held
at Nashville, Tennessee, where a half dozen revived chapters planned the
Fraternity's future growth.
The Reconstruction years were
cruel to the South, and southern colleges and their fraternities shared in the
general malaise of the region. In the 1870s and early 1880s more than a score
of new chapters were formed, some of them in exceedingly frail institutions.
Older chapters died as fast as new ones were established. By 1886 the
Fraternity had charted 49 chapters, but scarcely a dozen could be called
active. Two of the 49 were in the North. After much discussion and not a
little dissent, the first northern chapter had been established at
Pennsylvania College, now Gettysburg College, in 1883, and a second was placed
at Mt. Union College in Ohio two years later.
It was in 1886 that things took
a turn for the better. That autumn a 16-year-old youngster by the name of
Harry Bunting entered Southwestern Presbyterian University in Clarksville,
Tennessee, and was initiated by the young Tennessee Zeta chapter there that
had previously initiated two of his brothers. When Sigma Alpha Epsilon took in
Harry Bunting, it caught a comet by the tail.
In just eight years, under the
enthusiastic guidance of Harry Bunting and his younger brother, George, Sigma
Alpha Epsilon experienced a renaissance. Together they prodded Sigma Alpha
Epsilon chapters to enlarge their membership; they wrote encouraging articles
in the Fraternity's quarterly journal, The Record, promoting better chapter
standards; and above all they undertook an almost incredible program of
expansion of the Fraternity, resurrecting old chapters in the South (including
the mother chapter at Alabama) and founding new ones in the North and West. In
an explosion of growth, the Buntings single-handedly were responsible for
nearly fifty chapters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
When Harry Bunting founded the
Northwestern University chapter in 1894, he initiated as a charter member
William Collin Levere, a remarkable young man whose enthusiasm for the
Fraternity matched Bunting's. To Levere Bunting passed the torch of
leadership, and for the next three decades it was the spirit of "Billy" Levere
that dominated Sigma Alpha Epsilon and brought the Fraternity to maturity.
"Billy" did everything. He was
twice elected national president, served as the Fraternity's first full-time
executive secretary and chapter visitation officer (1912-27), edited its
quarterly magazine and several editions of the catalog and directory of
membership and published a monumental three volume history of the Fraternity
in 1911. It is small wonder than when Levere died February 22, 1927, the
Fraternity's Supreme Council decided to name their new national headquarters
building the Levere Memorial Temple. Construction of the Temple, an immense
Gothic structure located a stone's throw from Lake Michigan and across from
the Northwestern University campus, was started in 1929, and the building was
dedicated at Christmastime 1930.
When the Supreme Council met
regularly in the early 1930s at the Temple, educator John O. Moseley, the
Fraternity's national president, lamented that "we have in the Temple a
magnificent school-house. Why can we not have a school?" Accordingly, the
economic depression notwithstanding, in the summer of 1935 the Fraternity's
first leadership school was held under the direction of Dr. Moseley. The first
such workshop in the Fraternity world, it was immensely successful, and today
nearly every Fraternity holds such a school. The leadership is unquestionably
the best service Sigma Alpha Epsilon provides to its undergraduates who come
to Evanston in regimental numbers each year.
It was probably John Moseley
more than any other whose leadership carried Sigma Alpha Epsilon forward
during the next twenty years until his untimely death in 1955. The last years
of his life he served the Fraternity as its executive secretary, capping a
distinguished academic career that had included two college presidencies.
Since the Second World War the
Fraternity has grown much larger, and it has changed in a number of ways, some
quite obvious and others quite subtle Its growth in chapters and membership
has been quite spectacular, and its total number of initiates continues to be
the higher in the Fraternity world. More than a hundred chapter charters have
been granted in 45 years. A few chapters have died or have been suspended, but
a number of older ones have been revived, including two pre-Civil War chapters
(Baylor and Oglethorpe) The number of undergraduate members in each chapter
has remained remarkably steady, averaging approximately seventy men each.
Qualitative changes in recent
decades have been profound. Alongside their colleges chapters have
democratized. Membership today is for more heterogeneous than it was a
generation ago as chapters have welcomed increasing numbers of men from
religious, ethnic and racial minorities, enriching chapters with an
unprecedented cultural diversity. One has but to peruse the roster of the 600
or so delegates at the annual Leadership School to confirm the dimensions of
change.
The Fraternity enjoyed the
"happy days" of the 1950s, endured to survive the campus revolt of the 1960s
and early 1970s, and it tried to steer an even coarse in the turbulence that
marked the late 1970s and the 198Os. Together with its fellow collegiate
Greek-letter societies it wrestles today with problems attendant upon risk
management, the war against hazing, alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct rife
on our campuses. Never before have the challenges been so great or the
opportunities so rich. Accordingly the Fraternity has undertaken a thorough
program of reform and rejuvenation, seeking to assist its undergraduate
members to make a reaffirmation of faith in their best, most wholesome
traditions while seeking to adapt creatively to a new and invigorating college
climate. Sigma Alpha Epsilon looks to a future full of promise. (Back
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Government
In its early days the
government of the Fraternity was vested in one chapter, designated the Grand
Chapter, which was responsible only to the general convention. In 1886 this
plan was replaced by government by a Supreme Council of six members, later
reduced to five, and the creation of regional units called provinces, each
presided over by an Archon. After 1920 a Board of Trustees was created to
manage the Fraternity's endowment funds. For many years national conventions
were held annually, but since 1894 they have met biennially In alternate years
province conventions meet, and at the present time there are twenty-nine
provinces in the United States and Canada. Employment of a full-time executive
secretary was authorized by the Nashville national convention in 1912. (Back
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Housing
Sigma Alpha Epsilon's chapters
are on the whole well housed. One hundred sixteen of the undergraduate
chapters own their own homes, and a number of others are housed in
college-owned buildings.
The first chapter of the
Fraternity to have a house of its own was at the University of the South in
Sewanee, Tennessee. In order to get the funds to start this project the
members contracted to carry the university mail all through one winter. The
money earned helped build their house.
In 1904 the Fraternity erected
a building at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, as a memorial to Noble Leslie DeVotie and
the other seven founders. Later a chapter house was attached to it, and the
entire structure served for many years as a home for the original chapter This
was replaced in 1953 by a larger structure on a new site and was dedicated at
the Fraternity's centennial celebration on March 9, 1956.
The Fraternity's International
headquarters is maintained at the Levere Memorial Temple in Evanston Illinois.
Honoring all the members of the Fraternity who have served their countries on
land or sea or in the air since 1856, it was dedicated on December 28, 1930.
The Temple also contains what is considered the most complete library
pertaining to Greek-letter fraternities and sororities. The museum on the
first floor is devoted to a collection of interesting historical photographs,
pictures and collections from private sources. The walls of the building are
hung with oil portraits of distinguished members. The basement contains the
Panhellenic Room, on the ceiling of which are the coats-of-arms of forty
college fraternities and seventeen sororities, while the niches on the north
side contain large murals showing the founding of Phi Beta Kappa in 1776 and
that of Sigma Alpha Epsilon in 1856, together with other murals depicting
episodes in the history of the Fraternity. The most outstanding mural in the
Panhellenic Room is the reproduction of Raphael's "School of Athens," painted
by Johannes Waller in the 1930s.
The building continues to be
used for ceremonies and receptions by the various fraternities and sororities
and honor societies at Northwestern University. National fraternities
frequently meet there in convention or conclave. The impressive chapel of the
Temple, with its soaring vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows by Tiffany,
is used regularly for religious services and is the scene of many weddings of
Evanstonians and members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. In fact, the entire building
is open to the public for patriotic, religious and educational purposes, while
the library is also free to scholars seeking material pertaining to the
history of any or all college fraternities and college organizations (Back
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Insignia
The badge of the Fraternity is
diamond-shaped, a little less than an inch long and bears on a background of
nazarene blue enamel the device of Minerva, with a lion crouching at her feet,
above which are the letters Sigma Alpha Epsilon in gold. Below are the letters
Phi Alpha on a white ground in a wreath The colors are royal purple and old
gold. The flower is the violet. The colors of the pledge pin are nazarene
blue, white and gold with Phi Alpha in letters surrounded by a wreath.
The flag is royal purple with a
corner of old gold, the size and shape of the corner being the same as the
blue field in the flag of the United States. Upon the gold field appear the
letters Phi Alpha in royal purple In the center of the purple field which
constitutes the rest of the flag are the letters Sigma Alpha Epsilon in gold.
Immediately beneath the gold corner are the eight golden stars in a circle,
one for each founder. (Back to Top)
Publications
The catalogue of the Fraternity
has been published twelve times: in 1859, compiled by the North Carolina
chapter and printed in Washington; in 1870, 1872, 1877, with a supplement in
1880, 1886, 1893, 1904, 1918, 1929, 1981, 1986 and 1991. In 1906 was begun the
publication annually of letters from the chapters accompanied by chapter lists
forming a catalogue. A manual of the Fraternity, edited by Dr. George H. Kress
was published at Los Angeles in 1904. A songbook, originally published in
1891, has passed through nine editions, the latest issued in 1991. In 1911 a
detailed history of the Fraternity was published in three large octavo volumes
with many illustrations. This was the work of William C. Levere; it sold out
in less than a month. Research for a centennial history of the Fraternity,
carrying Levere's history forward from 1910 to 1956, was undertaken in 1956 by
archivist Lauren Foreman. In 1972, the Fraternity's historian, Joseph W.
Walt., completed and saw to the publication of The Era of Levere, a history of
Sigma Alpha Epsilon from 1910 to 1930, covering the two decades when
fraternities were at their zenith. A second volume by Walt is in preparation,
covering the years from 1930 to 1956.
In 1912, William C. Levere
brought out Who's Who in Sigma Alpha Epsilon, a series of biographical
sketches of living men prominent in the Fraternity. Among other books are A
Paragraph History of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, which passed through eleven editions
between 1912 and 1946, The Original Minutes of Alabama Mu, The Memory Book of
Sigma Alpha Epsilon, William C. Levere's lengthy account of the First World
War, Sigma Alpha Epsilon in the World War, The Sigma Alpha Epsilon Pledge
Manual, edited by 0. K. Quivey, and The Phoenix, the Fraternity's present
pledge manual, the most recent edition of which was published in 1995, edited
by Joseph W. Walt.
The Fraternity's magazine, The
Record, was founded in 1880 by Major Robert H. Wildberger of Kentucky Military
Institute chapter. It is published quarterly, and at least one issue per year
is sent to all living initiates of the Fraternity. Its circulation of more
than 389,000 is thought to be the largest among Fraternity publications.
In 1891 Harry and George
Bunting started a publication they called The Hustler, a secret, or at least
private, magazine. In 1894 its name was changed to Phi Alpha, and it is a
regularly issued secondary magazine of the Fraternity. Today The Hustler is a
publication of the annual Leadership School. Every chapter in the Fraternity
publishes a regular newspaper for its alumni and friends. (Back
to Top)
Headquarters (at the Levere
Memorial Temple)
1856 Sheridan Road, P.O. Box 1856
Evanston, Illinois 60204-1856
Phone: (847) 475-1856
Email:
headquarters@sae.net
Membership Reported deceased
membership 38,536
Active chapters 212
Inactive chapters 44
Colonies 9
Active
alumni associations 175
Total number of initiates 254,000
Chapter
Undergraduates 9,700
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