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Archive 1

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Extensive 2013 edits, and my (PSK Alum) sense of the Merger

I was an active of Phi Sigma Kappa at the time of the merger, and participated in pre-merger lobbying with the neighboring Wisconsin chapters. I was at the merger convention itself (as part of a memorable road trip that took us from the Univ. of Minnesota to River Falls, Menomonie, Eau Claire, Stevens Point, Whitewater, Platteville and eventually DC), and I was at the follow up 1987 convention where we adopted PSE symbolism into PSK. The entire exercise was blessed by the leadership of past national president Fred Schwengel of PSE and Grand President Dr. Tony Fusaro of PSK, who both acted in the role of elder statesmen of their respective fraternities, and Executive Director Brett Champion of PSK, and National President Jim Whitfield of PSE, who deftly resolved the business of merger. All four gentlemen represented the noblest and best of our Fraternities, and of the Fraternal Spirit, as they negotiated in good faith all aspects of the merger. It was due to their calm leadership most chapters moved forward, accepted the change, and worked through the stabilization period of the late 80s.

I recall from my road trip that while a majority of PSE chapters were stable, some of its groups were at risk due to low manpower or lack of support.

We Minnesota brothers, long on the frontier, were ecstatic to have neighboring chapters, including Phi Omega in Moorhead and the long-standing colonies in Duluth and Superior. So Beta Deuteron was decidedly pro-merger.

I also witnessed, on a practical level, how important this merger was to both groups. PSE was failing without the staff, volunteers or funding to support stability during a turbulent time. Yet PSK was also just treading water; we seemed unable to break past the 80-chapter level as a mid-sized fraternity, spread as we were on both coasts, and stagnation was building. The brilliance of PSE's leadership in seeking this merger was that by acting at that time they were able to arrest the breakdown of many existing chapters and merge as an equal, rather than to be absorbed piecemeal by others after much more had been lost. Further, from the perspective of ritual messages and values, the fraternities were quite similar. For example, they were the only two national fraternities in the NIC conference whose motto was The Golden Rule. Even more, our colors and our cardinal principals were almost identical, and amazingly, even our common name, "Phi Sig," was the same(!) Nor did the map gave us many problems: We only had one campus where both fraternities held active chapters. In many ways, the stars were aligned for us. Hence, this merger looked to be an enormous, beneficial shot in the arm for both groups.

Post-merger, we quickly learned that some groups were too far gone to stabilize or heal, and the original count of something like 120 net chapters soon dropped to under 100. Still, almost 30 years later at this writing, the eighteen original PSE chapters that remain are stable and healthy, and our combined fraternity is much improved because of it. PSK continues to seek expansion back into lost PSE campuses, wherever viable.

Change is hard, and I understand the motivations of some PSE alumni to reject the merger, then, as if it was a body blow to their honor and a question of their abilities. It certainly was not, but again, fraternity work is a labor of love... Former presidents Dean Rockwell and John Sandwell took it very hard, and with others seemed to step up their efforts to corral the three, then four and eventually seven chapters which went on to form Phi Sigma Phi. Dean has since passed. Should any of the PSP brethren have recollection of these times, the one area where I do not have specific information is that I believe that three (four?) of the chapters cited as among the Founding Seven PSP chapters were dormant for a short time. Nor do I have all the closure dates of some of the dormant chapters. Please confirm if you have this information.

I was able to add a number of chapters to the original list placed here, and re-format for what I hope is better readability. As to the rest of the chapters on PSE's list, I've listed separately the long-dormant chapters from PSE, so that all chartered chapters are represented.

I know that Phi Sigma Kappa, for her part, is keenly interested in reactivating those chapters that it can, and hopes to enlist local alumni in this purpose. We've always maintained an open-door policy toward Phi Sigma Epsilon, which extends to Phi Sigma Phi. Beneficially, our track record is that alumni groups where both chapters were present on a campus at one time have largely been able to get along and support re-colonization. This bodes well for the future. In a parallel effort, I noted any duplicates on the List of Phi Sigma Kappa chapters page, with "See XXXX Chapter" messages under affected chapter names.

For the record, all PSE alumni and all PSP chapters and alumni are welcome at Beta Deuteron of Phi Sigma Kappa, at the University of Minnesota. We know how to recognize you ;).

Tom Jackson, alumnus '87 Jax MN (talk) 05:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Lambda Chapter

As noted in both the first and the third sections of the chapter list, Eastern Michigan University, of Ypsilanti, Michigan's Lambda Chapter was the source of TWO Phi Sig chapters at that school. In early 1985, the active chapter had split with their alumni over the merger decision - the actives were in favor and the alumni were not. PSK's Epsilon Lambda is the continuation of the active Lambda chapter of PSE, while a group of recent and older alumni - all of them, we believe - from that chapter opted to re-start an independent Lambda on that campus for the purpose of joining the as-yet-unnamed new national entity of Phi Sigma Phi. This eventually led to a colonization under their local control during the tumultuous times right after the Merger. To further complicate matters, a PSK chapter had once operated on that same campus, but had previously closed. Alumni from that dormant PSK chapter, Chi Pentaton, supported the new Epsilon Lambda group and have joined the ranks of new alumni that have come from the post-merger Epsilon Lambda. Jax MN (talk) 05:19, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Hmm... Popular chapter name. I just read that Phi Sigma Phi named one of its new chapters, this one at the nearby University of Michigan, Dearborn, as ... Epsilon Lambda, which should be distinguished from both the afore-mentioned PSP Lambda and PSK Epsilon Lambda at Eastern Michigan University of Ypsilanti. A Wikipedia user at DNS 24.247.95.200 made an edit today to Phi Sigma Epsilon's list of chapters, removing Epsilon Lambda from the ranks of those that became active PSK chapters, but his or her edit was inaccurate. I reversed the edit on this basis. I've added this Talk section to explain the rather complex situation. Jax MN (talk) 05:34, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

New section - ΦΣΦ activity since the merger

I observed when revising this page that the PSP chapters used similar names to earlier PSE groups. I thought that was routine, as an indicator of previous PSK activity and connection. But on closer inspection, only about half of these are found at the same schools as the groups with the previously assigned PSE names. Therefore I added a new section to the page to address this ambiguity. It appears that, where there is similarity in naming, these chapters were some kind of post-merger continuation of an existing PSE group into PSP; either as an active chapter that converted or chose immediately to become part of PSP, or as a dormant chapter that had followed the same path.

It would be very helpful to have a list of PSP chapter colonizations, charterings and (where applicable) closings, to allow this section to be put into chartering order. As it stands now, chapter order is rendered in the same manner as the Phi Sigma Phi Wikipedia entry. --Assuming this came from a list, somewhere. Jax MN (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

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