![]() ![]() ![]() The thought which lay in the minds of the founders was good. "We believe that our fraternity exerts a powerful influence for good in national college life. Founder Brooks, four years before his death in 1938, put it this way: It never was simply another fraternity to be invited. Phi Sig's value to other campuses was as an organization offering something special and valuable to persons of varying backgrounds. And the principle has held though Phi Sigma Kappa stands high among national orders, size alone has never been a major consideration or goal. "Bigness was never one of our ideas," Big Chief Barrett said in later years, admonishing a Convention that was getting starry-eyed over dozens of new expansion possibilities. These same early years saw the pin (or badge) adopted essentially as we know it today (1888) an induction ritual, which embodied the concept of universal brotherhood and expanded the order's horizons beyond Massachusetts, was written in 1890 and the first chapter out of the Northeast came into being at West Virginia University (1891). The transition to a national order was accomplished. Cutter was also instrumental in the establishment of Gamma at Cornell. He later attended Albany Medical College (in 1873 merged with Union College) and established a group, which became Beta Chapter. Cutter was inducted into the group, a man destined to have much to do with the preservation of the order's early records and with its expansion beyond the confines of the Massachusetts campus. As early as 1875 an inquiry had been received from a group at Maine Agricultural College, and a few years later there was an unexpected letter from the University of New Mexico-but nothing came of either "feeler." In 1878, John A. And although the germ of expansion arrived early, its period of gestation consumed 13 years. Originally, only one chapter was contemplated by the founders. Phi Sigma Kappa was adopted as the group's official name that same year-after four years of debate and the work of seven committees. The Grand Chapter was organized in 1878, to tie alumni and undergraduates in a continuing relationship, and Charles Sumner Howe, an 1876 initiate, was elected its first Grand President (at the age of 20). ![]()
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