The History of Delta Sigm Pi

In the fall of 1906 at the School of Commerce, Accounts, and Finance at NewYork University, four men by the names of Harold Valentine Jacobs, Alexander Frank Makay, Alfred Moysello, and Henery Albert Tienken, unknown to each other before college, established what became the International Fraternity of Delta Sigma Pi.

These four men met while riding the same subway route home. While on their rides home, they discussed topics that they all had in interest. They decided to create an association that would be open to all students of business. In 1907, the fraternity was officially formed with a written constitution and ritual, but without a name. On April 2, 1908, the name Delta Sigma Pi was adopted by the membership and the bylaws were also approved at this meeting. The design of the badge was approved shortly thereafter. In 1911, the publication DELTASIG was introduced. A year later, the name was changed to THE DELTASIG.

The fraternity was nationalized when Northwestern School of Commerce at Northwestern University established the Beta Chapter in 1914. Since the chapters were many miles apart, there was a meeting called the Congress of Chapters. This meeting is now known as Grand Chapter Congress and it meets every odd year in August. At the first meeting, the purpose of the fraternity was created.

By Delta Sigma Pi's 25th aniversary in 1932, the Fraternity had grown to 55 chapters, 10 alumni chapters and a total membership of over 8,700.

By 1955, plans were nearly complete for the national headquaters building across from the Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio. Also at this time, there were over 90 chapters, and the total membership initiated since 1907 had surpassed the 30,000 mark with alumni chapters established throughout most of the major cities in the United States.

At the 29th Grand Chapter Congress in 1973, a constitutional ammendment to open the membership of the fraternity to women was defeated. At the next Grand Chapter Congress in 1975, the Board of Directors met to rediscuss the coeducational issues and they authorized the chapters to immediately initiate qualified female business students on November 7, 1975.

While this student organization is officially recognized by Western Michigan University, what it has published does not constitute official Western Michigan University content. The views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the page's author(s) and comments on the content of these pages should be direct to the page author(s).