Students form off-campus fraternity Kappa Sigma

What started out as an interest group in Fall 2021 has quickly grown into much more only a year later as off-campus fraternity Kappa Sigma continues to grow and make their presence known to the university’s student body. Photo courtesy of Trishul Pal

With the prevalence of nine Greek fraternities and nine Greek sororities that function at Chapman University, an off-campus  fraternity, Kappa Sigma, has officially made its way to the student body.

Founded in 1869 at the University of Virginia, the Kappa Sigma Fraternity is reported to be the largest college social fraternity in the world, consisting of over 250,000 current members. There are nearly 300 Kappa Sigma chapters located throughout the U.S. and Canada.

The Kappa Sigma fraternity at Chapman is declared by its members as an off-campus fraternity, meaning that they are not affiliated with the Chapman Interfraternity Council (IFC), which governs and represents all established fraternities on campus. 

Kappa Sigma still engages in philanthropy events and plans many brotherhood activities for members and the Orange community to attend. 

“Even with being off-campus, our fraternity consists of only Chapman students,” said Zayd Milkias, a sophomore broadcast journalism and documentary major who is also a member of Kappa Sigma. “Because we are not affiliated with IFC, we can’t use Chapman’s name, hence being referred to as ‘Kappa Sigma OC’ in the name of the fraternity.”

According to junior strategic and corporate communication major Trishul Pal, a co-founder of the fraternity and the organization’s rush chairman, the biggest difference between Kappa Sigma and the other IFC fraternities is that there are less dues for Kappa Sigma since there are no additional fees that have to be paid to Chapman IFC.

“The reason why Kappa Sigma is not affiliated with Chapman IFC is because fraternities at Chapman have become so competitive, and therefore, it felt very toxic to be a part of,” Pal told The Panther. “Right now, the best thing we can do for our fraternity is focus on ourselves, our brotherhood and our fraternity’s four pillars — fellowship, leadership, scholarship and service — not on competition.”

During the fall 2021 semester, the Kappa Sigma chapter began as a small interest group of four students and continued to build up their members and brotherhood since then. In the spring 2022 semester, the Kappa Sigma chapter became fully recognized and affiliated with the national Kappa Sigma headquarters and achieved enough membership to be regarded as a colony rather than their previous title of an interest group. 

A colony is defined as a newly established fraternity or sorority with an affiliation that is recognized by the university and national headquarters, but still has further requirements to fulfill before receiving chapter status.

“In order for our chapter to become affiliated with the national headquarters, we had to get Dean (Jerry) Price’s and Dean (Chris) Hutchinson’s approval first,” Pal said. 

The fraternity met with Price, Chapman’s dean of students, as well as Hutchinson, the university’s assistant vice president and associate dean of students, in December 2021 regarding Kappa Sigma being accepted at Chapman as an off-campus fraternity.

Both Price and Hutchinson are aware of Kappa Sigma operating as an off-campus fraternity and have a copy of the fraternity’s insurance and policies to stay up-to-date with them. 

While Chapman’s chapter has been recognized by the national fraternity as a colony, they are still working on becoming chartered through completion of the national fraternity’s colony roadmap requirements.

In order to get chartered, each individual fraternity member must complete 30 community service hours and altogether as a fraternity, they must meet their fundraising goal of $3,000 set by national Kappa Sigma headquarters. The fraternity must also acquire a minimum of 60 members in order to become chartered. 

Members of Kappa Sigma hope to become chartered preferably by February 2023, just in time for the start of the spring semester.

“Being a part of Kappa Sigma is so much more than just being a part of a fraternity,” said Josiah Randerson, a senior applied human physiology major, who is also the president and co-founder of the chapter. “It’s not about the parties or the stereotypes a lot of people make fraternities out to be. It’s the brotherhood you join, the connections you make and memories that last with you for a lifetime.”

Randerson also told The Panther that Kappa Sigma is not the first fraternity to go off-campus nationally. 

“It is quite common these days at a lot of schools, (and) we just happen to be the first in a long time to do this at Chapman,” Randerson said. 

The trend of fraternities disassociating from IFC has continued to grow in recent months, as schools such as University of Southern California (USC) and University of Colorado Boulder report a number of on-campus fraternities officially cutting ties with their respective universities. 

As of August 2022, about 10 fraternities at USC have been reported to have disaffiliated with the university. Kappa Sigma has decided to hop on that same trend and build their fraternity from the ground up disaffiliated from IFC.

“Being a part of a brotherhood with strong values where everyone holds each other accountable has made me study harder for classes, think outside the box for fundraising and develop a greater understanding of my brothers and deeper desire to support them in every way I possibly can,” said fraternity member Blake Shanberg, a sophomore business administration major. “It’s an amazing feeling that whenever things get too overwhelming I have brothers that will do for me everything I would do for them.”

The fraternity held their public philanthropy event, a Haunted House event, Oct. 25 and 26 to Chapman students and Orange County residents to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, in which all proceeds go towards fighting breast cancer. Over the two-day period, they raised almost $2,000, with all proceeds going toward the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

“I actually had the idea to turn one of our houses into a haunted house with scary decorations and have some of the brothers as live actors in the spirit of Halloween season,” said junior business administration major and fraternity member Dominik Firmani. 

Firmani also serves as the brothers in action conductor, meaning he works on the executive committee to teach new member education and help new members learn what it means to be a brother of Kappa Sigma. 

“My absolute favorite part was seeing the enthusiastic smiles and excitement from the little kids as they ran up to us after making it through the house to tell us how much fun they had,” Firmani said. 

 As of October 2022, Kappa Sigma is made up of 35 to 40 brothers, and they hope to recruit even more members to their fraternity throughout the remainder of the school year. So far, the fraternity has begun to establish relationships and friendships with a few on-campus fraternities and sororities.

“With being off-campus, we are unable to compete in IFC’s competitions (and) rush, and we cannot advertise on campus,” said junior computer science major Aidan Lewis-Grenz, the fraternity’s vice president. “Although we don’t work directly with other fraternities and sororities, we try our best to support them in any way we can at events like Anchor Splash, Airbands and AXO Unplugged.”

Kappa Sigma’s formation as an off-campus fraternity comes after Sigma Alpha Epsilon was banned from campus after allegations of hazing and racism. The fraternity had been seen with great controversy on campus before being entirely removed from the university.

More information about Kappa Sigma and their upcoming philanthropy and rush events can be found on the fraternity’s Instagram.

“(Creating this fraternity) was an opportunity to do something great –– to be a founding father, to start an organization from the ground up and to collect our shared values and goals together into a brotherhood that prioritized meaningful connections and academic, personal and professional growth,” said co-founder Gabe Davidson, a junior computer science major. “Being able to come to school and wear my letters, promote the values of our organization and spread the joy and accomplishment that I feel every day are some of my favorite parts of Kappa Sigma.”