BROTHERS:
Sigma Phi Is
Hard To Label
Sigma Phi seeks diverse students with shared values. Ideally, students come from a variety of backgrounds, colleges, majors, and interests. More importantly, during their undergraduate careers, students discover new passions, birth new ideas, and see the world and their place in it in creative ways. Here are profiles of recent student members.
Who We Seek
We Learn From Those
Different Than Ourselves
The alumni of Sigma Phi are as diverse as they were as students. In geography, professional interests, and lifestyles, they encompass a wide range of industries and skills. If you scan the profiles of alumni, you’ll discover a creative canvas of careers, professions, and passions with common elements of leadership, service, and, broadly defined, success. Law, medicine, real estate, entrepreneurship, science, service, academia, hospitality, consulting, finance, art, and banking are just a few of the many career paths our students and alumni pursue.
Selective, Not Elitist
The most rewarding annual event is new member recruitment. Hours upon hours go into getting to know prospective members, and then deliberating thoughtfully and passionately about the few we wish to welcome into our community. We’re weary of “looking into the mirror” and work to avoid picking people “like us.” We’re less interested in people who fit in than in people who challenge us.
Seventy Years, Not Four
You will find your time at Cornell and your years after to be immeasurably enriched by the Sigma Phi community that supports one another, inspires the best in each of us and serves as lifelong mentors, advisors, and friends. When you join Sigma Phi you have access and the embrace of alumni from multiple generations with whom you have a cherished experience in common.
We Have A Fundamental Passion To Identify And Attract People Different From Ourselves
We embrace the idea that we learn from others, and we learn more from people who have different perspectives and experiences.
ONE FOREST PARK LANE:
The Place
Life in Sigma Phi is about a comfortable home; delicious meals; hosted events, and casual evenings. Just steps from the center of campus (ok, one steep hill), we return to One Forest Park Lane for lunch, study, sleep, and fun.
SIGMA PHI:
Five Guiding Principles
1.
We’re small, taking only 10-15 students each year in a thoughtful, meaningful selection process
2.
We encourage students to live in for all three of their upper-class years benefiting from a community of peers, mentors, and devoted friends
3.
We underwrite program initiatives such as the alumni-funded distinguished speakers series and leadership development programs
4.
our alumni are engaged, providing governance, mentoring, networking, and philanthropy
Values
Intellectual Curiosity
You’ve been accepted into one of the world’s best universities, but Sigma Phis aren’t done. They relish all that Cornell has to offer inside and outside of the classroom, pursuing their studies and college life with vigor and aplomb. Sigma Phi regularly ranks among the Cornell fraternities with the highest cumulative GPA. Sigma Phi's also learn from each other – one of the true benefits of intimate friendships in close proximity over the course of four years.
Compassion + Kindness
Students at Sigma Phi are ambitious, but never at the expense of cooperation, service, and friendship. As visible members of the Cornell and Ithaca community, we seek to uphold the highest standards in conduct with each other, with our fellow students, and with our Ithaca neighbors.
Members remain the closest of friends throughout their lives, assisting each other both professionally and personally as we tackle the challenges of our lives and share in the joys of our lives.
We're Parents, Too
The Alumni Are Dedicated To Meaningful Engagement With The Current Students
For almost a century, the Epsilon Association of Sigma Phi has served as the governing board responsible for overseeing the One Forest Park Lane house, supporting and mentoring the current students, and engaging with the alumni. The board meets on campus each semester, working with the student officers to advance the values and mission of Sigma Phi.
We welcome your questions and inquiries
To Parents + Students
From The Epsilon Association Of Sigma Phi
The Alumni GOVERNING BODY OF SIGMA PHI AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY
The Sigma Phi Cornell Experience
Being a member of Sigma Phi provides a vital sense of belonging and friendship that greatly contributes to both academic achievement and personal well-being.
In addition to the challenge of adjusting to the academic life at one of the world’s premier universities, first-year students struggle to find close friends, find their pace in day-to-day living, and find a home at Cornell – a sense of place on a large, complex campus. Other students experience their undergraduate careers as nomads, moving from residence to residence over the course of four years – missing a sense of belonging so critical to educational success and personal well-being. Not for those who join Sigma Phi.
Why A Fraternity?
At their best, fraternities provide a small residential community, both intimate and empowering, that enriches and enhances the college experience. The comprehensive 2014 Gallup/Purdue Study concluded that students who joined fraternities or sororities had higher measures of well-being in their careers, families, health, communities, and lives, and as alumni, they reflected more favorably about their on-campus experience, demonstrating a higher degree of loyalty to their alma mater.
Why Sigma Phi Society
Sigma Phi is hard to describe. Our own friends and family often say, “it’s not like any fraternity I know.” Our students are motivated by academics, driven by ambition, and inspired by the special camaraderie at One Forest Park Lane.
Sigma Phi regularly ranks among the Cornell fraternities with the highest cumulative GPA. Sigma Phi's also learn from each other – one of the true benefits of intimate friendships in close proximity over the course of four years.
We welcome parents and guardians to contact us with any questions about how Sigma Phi might be the right place for your student to experience Cornell and launch their post-graduation life.