Today is Phi Kappa Psi’s Founders’ Day. I know this because I follow the tweets of Mike McCoy, Phi Psi’s Historian (@PhiPsiArchives). Mike has attended the National Archives Conference for Fraternities and Sororities. At the conference in the summer of 2012, he even tutored us in how to use twitter to educate members about fraternity history. Mike is the pro at it and my hat is off to him!
Phi Kappa Psi was founded on February 19, 1852 at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. William Henry Letterman and Charles Page Thomas Moore, students at the college, helped tend to the town’s residents who had been stricken during a typhoid outbreak. When they met at the Letterman home 161 years ago today, they discussed founding an organization that would “grow to include men of honor and good will at colleges throughout America.” Phi Psi’s fourth chapter was founded at Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1865, Washington College and Jefferson College merged to form Washington and Jefferson College.
While a student at University of Virginia, future U.S. President Woodrow Wilson became a member of Phi Kappa Psi’s Virginia Alpha chapter. As a collegian, he served as chapter president and attended the Grand Arch Council at the St. Marc Hotel in Washington, D.C. He later transferred his membership to the Maryland Alpha chapter at Johns Hopkins University; he also served as its chapter president.
The fraternity’s leadership school is named for President Wilson. Since 1960, the Woodrow Wilson Leadership School has been providing Phi Kappa Psis with educational opportunities.
© Fran Becque www.fraternityhistory.com All rights reserved.
-
Woodrow Wilson, Phi Kappa Psi
