Sigma Nu

The year was 1866, and unbeknownst to their fellow cadets at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI), three men were about to set out on a mission to change the preexisting system of physical abuse and hazing of underclassmen. Amidst the turmoil and civil strife of the Reconstruction period, a time during which the south was struggling in vain to recover from the ravages that the war has wrought on their society; James Frank Hopkins, Greenfield Quarles, and James McIlvaine Riley came together due to their equally shared feelings of discontent with the hazing situation, ultimately becoming the founding fathers of the Legion of Honor, later known as Sigma Nu Fraternity. Due to the fact that the VMI enforced a strict code of honor, it seemed only fitting to the founders that one of their governing principles be honor; however, the other two principles were undoubtedly to be love and truth. In contestation of hazing of any kind, the founders set out to form a society that would use these principles to create equality amongst its members.

By taking these three quintessential governing principles and applying it to the expansion of the fraternity, the Zeta Xi chapter was thus opened in 1952; however, to the dismay of the chapter, it was closed in 1991. After 17 years of dormancy the chapter has now been fully awakened with full force, support, and enthusiasm of not only Sigma Nu headquarters and alumni, but of the new 29 founding fathers, for we are the new men of Sigma Nu.