![]() They discussed the organization of a fraternity they would call "Sigma Phi." The exact date of this meeting is not known. The 12 met in October, 1901, in Gaw and Wallace's room on the third floor of Ryland Hall. The six new members were Lucian Cox, Richard Owens, Edgar Allen, Robert McFarland, Franklin Kerfoot,and Thomas McCaul. The six original members found six others also searching for a campus fellowship neither the college campus nor the existing fraternity system could offer. ![]() Wanting to maintain their fellowship, Carter Ashton Jenkens, Benjamin Gaw, William Carter, William Wallace, Thomas Wright, and William Phillips decided to form their own local fraternity. Chi Phi felt that Richmond College was too small for the establishment of a Chi Phi chapter. The request for a charter was forwarded to Chi Phi only to meet with refusal. ![]() He found five men who had already been drawn into a bond of friendship and urged them to join him in applying for a charter of Chi Phi at Richmond College. When he transferred to Richmond College in the fall of 1900, he sought companions to take the place of the Chi Phi brothers he had left behind. Sigma Phi Epsilon FoundedĬarter Ashton Jenkens, the 18-year-old son of a minister, had been a student at Rutgers University, N. The desire for brotherhood was in the young men's souls. Sigma Phi Epsilon was founded because 12 young collegians hungered for a campus fellowship based on Judeo/Christian ideals that neither the college community nor the fraternity system at that time could offer. The little Baptist college, founded in 1830, became home to Sigma Phi Epsilon. Almost half this number belonged to five fraternities previously chartered on the campus. Richmond College in the early 20th Century was attended by less than 300 students. The First 50 Years The Place of Our Origin Springboard: A Series to Launch You Into SigEp Leadership.The park was dedicated on October 12, 1967. Communal basketball courts, paved courts at each house, and a large parking area behind the houses were installed at the same time. The 13 original fraternities in the park were Sigma Chi, Alpha Tau Omega, Lambda Chi Alpha, Phi Gamma Delta, Phi Sigma Kappa, Delta Tau Delta, Pi Kappa Alpha, Sigma Nu, Zeta Beta Tau, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Alpha Gamma Rho, and Kappa Alpha. They, and members of the 13 fraternities building houses, turned over the first shovels of land. Governor Frank Clement, UT President Andy Holt, and Jerome Taylor, chairman of the board of trustees’ building committee, broke ground for the park on January 19, 1966. That site eventually did become the site of Fraternity Park when 13 fraternities, some displaced from their houses by development of the campus made possible by the Yale Avenue Urban Renewal Project, built new houses in the 18-acre Fraternity Park. The fraternities were then to pay back the balances of the loan over a 40-year period. The land continued to be owned by UT, but the fraternities were to occupy the building sites on a lease basis with options up to 75 years. Each fraternity put up 20 percent of the cost prior to the start of the construction. UT secured a 40-year loan for the fraternities on 80 percent of the construction cost. The way for the Fraternity Park project was cleared in 1958 when the UT Board of Trustees adopted a policy of financial aid to the fraternities. When the repurchase time came, the fraternity decided to remain with the rental agreement and negotiated a long-term lease.Īt its May 1955 meeting, the UT Trustees approved for the fraternity row site Yale Avenue (now Volunteer Avenue) west of Eighteenth Street. When its house was complete, Kappa Sigma sold its lot to UT, paying a nominal yearly lease fee, with a provision that the fraternity could repurchase the land in 55 years. ![]() Kappa Sigma built at the corner of Eighteenth Street and Lake Avenue. Sixteen lots were to be available for fraternities for rental, with houses to be built in groups of three between Lake and Terrace, and seven lots were to be available on the south side of Terrace Avenue for single houses. The initial plan, released in December 1954, placed fraternity row along Lake Avenue and Terrace Avenue, between Eighteenth and Twenty-Third Streets. Claxton Building) and requested the location so they could purchase land. Kappa Sigma Fraternity was planning to build a new house because their house would be needed for construction of the Education Building (Philander P. In 1954 the UT Board of Trustees was working on a Master Site Plan with its architect, and one element was to be a “fraternity row” concept, which would avoid having to have fraternities move because their houses were in the way of a university project.
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