Sigma Nu
Sigma Nu, the honor fraternity, was founded in 1869 at Virginia Military Institute. For more than 110 years, the Delta Theta chapter at Knox has been a prominent leader in academics, sports and community service. Today, Sigma Nu’s mission continues to develop ethical and honorable leaders of society through the development of the minds, hearts and characters of its members.
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History in Galesburg
The oldest chapter of a fraternity on the Knox College campus, Sigma Nu was originally founded as Delta Theta, a local fraternity at nearby Lombard College in 1861. In 1891, Delta Theta became affiliated with the national Sigma Nu Fraternity. The Chapter was allowed to keep Delta Theta as its chapter designation, even though it is out of sequence with the other national chapters. It is only one of two Sigma Nu chapters allowed to do this.
Reputation
Sigma Nu, as any of its members will tell you, does not fit the traditional Fraternity stereotypes, like jocks whose primary focus is getting people drunk. If you've ever been to Sigma Nu, you'll know that you're far more likely to find the brothers playing Wii on their 46 inch TV than doing keg stands or power hours.
Sigma Nu is known as the geekiest fraternity on campus. Rather than be dismayed by their reputation, Sigma Nus often revel in it, having recently adopted the slogan "Sigma Nu: We take the 'R' out of 'Greek'".
Many Sigma Nus came to Knox decidedly anti-Greek and never considered joining any fraternity, until they discover Snu. This has led to a diverse and open minded group of guys. Though Sigma Nu doesn't fit the traditional frat stereotypes, it seems to get a new stereotype of its own every five years or so.
- Since their 2000-01 pledge class, Sigma Nu has largely been known as the LARPer frat, or "gamer" frat. Now (2007), the latter is more accurate, as very few brothers take part in the Vampire LARP anymore, but lots of brothers play too many video games. There is also a large contingent of tree-hugging hippie types in the house as of 2007. Oddly enough, they get the best grades in Sigma Nu...
- For many years prior to 2000-01, Sigma Nu was known as the international fraternity. At one point, more than half of the actives were international students - geeky international students.
- Before Snu was the international frat, it was the gay frat, otherwise known as the "pink" frat. This reputation stuck around long after it was warranted, especially among the other fraternities because of rampant homophobia.
- Long, long before that, Sigma Nu was populated by Veterans returning from World War II. They were a bit "old fashioned" and didn't approve of all those gays and foreigners that eventually took over their fraternity, but it seems like they got over it.
Sigma Nu Delta Theta also has a reputation of academic excellence (what else would you expect from a bunch of geeks?), and consistently has one of the two highest Chapter grade point averages among fraternities at Knox.
The constituent members of Sigma Nu tend not to drink as often as members of TKE, and are less frequently varsity athletes than members of Beta. Right now they have one varsity athelete. He's a golfer, so that might not even count.
Some people describe Sigma Nu as a cross between the Deltas from the movie Animal House and the Lambdas of the movie Revenge of the Nerds due to their odd mixture of huge geeks and hardcore partiers.
Chapter House
The Sigma Nu chapter house is located at 556 S. West Street across from the Quad loading dock. It is the smallest chapter house of any fraternity at Knox by square footage, and shares the lowest housing capacity with Sigma Chi.
Parties
While Sigma Nu is an important part of members' social lives, Sigma Nus don't tend to rely as much on the fraternity for their social activities as other fraternities' members seem to, and have several friends outside of Sigma Nu. As a result, there are typically fewer "unofficial" parties at Sigma Nu. On weekends when there is not a registered party, Sigma Nus will often be seen at other parties around campus, including those of other fraternities.
Sigma Nus try to avoid having a bunch of people over they don't know just for free beer. They don't mind when it happens - they just don't get it. As a result, Snu parties are typically smaller, more personal affairs than those of other fraternities, and consist mainly of closer friends of the house.
There is often dancing, but the dance floor is seldom packed for the entire party. Exceptions occur--the 80s dance party of 2005-06 and the James Bond Party on April 20, 2007 are prime examples of this.
Parties throughout the year include "Sunrise" and "Sunset" at the beginning and end of the year respectively (formerly "Tequila Sunrise" and "-Sunset"), "Sigma Boo", a Halloween party, "Party With a Heart On", a Valentines' party, and many others.
Since Sigma Nu parties are more than just an excuse to get hammered, booty dance, and get laid, women generally feel secure that they will not be sexually harassed at a Snu party.
Tunak
At some point, often multiple points during a Snu party, all members will come to the dance floor to do a ridiculous dance to the equally ridiculous song, Tunak Tunak Tun, by Daler Mehndi. Though brother Akshat Agaarwal once explained the meaning of the words of Tunak, Akshat usually didn't make much sense; hence, the song's meaning remains a mystery. On Flunk Day Sigma Nus do the Tunak dance in the middle of West Street in front of their house.
Inter-fraternity Beef
Sigma Nu doesn't have any beef or rivalry with any of the other fraternities. This is due to the fact that Snus are generally a pretty innocuous group of nice guys that don't start shit. Snu's only hit the Start button.
Athletics
As previously noted, Sigma Nus rarely are varsity atheletes. Currently, they have a varsity golfer and a former varsity soccer player. They do, however, participate in Intramural Dodge Ball. They just make sure they take precautions to make them as numb to the sting of the ball as possible before hand.
