Sigma Psi 125th Founders' Day History Walk Preview

1

Wade House

Until 1977, Sigma Psi lived in Wade House, located at the intersection of Magnolia Drive and E 108th St, with another local sorority, DPhiU (Delta Phi Upsilon).The house itself was reportedly haunted by a ghost in the attic who would open the window. Sisters had the police nail the window shut, but it was found open again the next day.At the beginning of the 1977 school year the university notified the chapter that this house would be torn down to make way for a VA parking lot. Sisters had already been assigned room numbers, so this news was a shock to the chapter. In a scramble to find a new home, Sigma Psi moved into Asgaard that year.

2

Crawford Auto Aviation Museum at the Western Reserve Historical Society

This was the location of the 1984 Spring Formal, which started the Sigma Psi Dating Service. Many of the sisters did not have dates for formal, so one sister started fixing them up with men she knew.We also had our Spring Formal here in Spring 2016. The Green and Gold Gala celebrating our 125th Founders' Day was held here in March 2022.

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Delta Upsilon House

This is the former location of the Delta Upsilon house, which was torn down in 1991. We used to hold toga parties and Fire and Ice here. Many DUs have dated, lavaliered, or married Sigma Psis.In the spring of 2001, DU active Sid Banerjee found out that we did not have a special event planned for our Founders' Day and threw us a party. We show our appreciation to him as we maintained a strong relationship with Sid after this event.

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Alpha Phi House

This is the location of the former Phi Kappa Alpha house. Also called the “Pikes,” they lived here until Thanksgiving 1988,when they were no longer large enough to keep their house.We used to pull pranks back and forth with the Pikes, and had to make them dinners and serenade them to get our stolen stuff back.The Pikes, a chapter which is no longer on campus, carved their name into the doors of both Asgaard and our current house. The door was removed from the Sigma Psi house in 2015.Alpha Phi was the first national chapter to join our campus when they colonized in 1980. In the spring of 1998, Sigma Psi made history by pulling another sorority (Alpha Phi) into the pit.

5

Perkins House

Now the Delta Tau Delta house, we used to live here in the early 1970s with two other sororities: DPhiU (Delta Phi Upsilon) and Phi Kappa Zeta. Sigma Psi founded the Panhellenic Inter-Sorority Council, and this is where its meetings were held. At this time, all sororities at CWRU were local. This council was later replaced by Panhel after two nationals came on campus.Years ago, some Delta Tau Delta brothers stole all of our pledge paddles and letters in the middle of the night and we had to collect them. In later years, we pranked them by stealing all of their light bulbs (including the one in the refrigerator) and remotes while they were away for a ritual. In return, they stole our remote control.

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Asgaard

Asgaard was our last true house, where we lived until the summer of 1988. The house itself is named Asgaard and, because it meant “Home of the Gods,” we answered our phone with “Sigma Psi, Home of the Goddesses.” Before us, the Society for Creative Anachronisms lived here.Initially, we shared Asgaard with DPhiU (Delta Phi Upsilon), Phi Mu’s predecessor. DPhiU sold us their rights to the house for a piano, which we replaced for free later on.To make their pledge paddle, one pledge class broke into the house and stole a bed board and a door knocker that said Sigma Psi on it.A big party was held the night the lease expired that got a little out of hand. There wasn’t any furniture so it was a bring your own chair (B.Y.O.C.) party.Pi Kappa Alpha was carved into the wooden door here, as well as the front door of our current house.

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Pierce House

We lived on the third floor of Pierce from 1988 to 1989. Years ago, a pledge class stole a Pierce sign for their pledge paddle but got in trouble with the university and had to give it back. Instead, they made a replica of the sign to use as their pledge paddle.

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The Spot (Leutner)

When The Spot was first established, it had a “Now Open” sign. Sisters stole it, altered it to say “The G Spot is Now Open,” and put it in the house. Mark Starr, then the Director of Greek Life, found the vandalized sign during a fire alarm at the house. It was too damaged to be returned, so we had to replace the sign. Because of this incident, they chained the new sign to a tree.Meg McKenna, who was in charge of The Spot at the time, later became our faculty advisor.

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Norton House

We lived on the fourth floor of Norton from 1989 to 1992. There used to be paintings on the walls left by some of our sisters. Many sisters also lived in Norton before becoming actives.There are daffodils across the road as well as around campus which were left by a pledge class.

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Alpha Chi Omega House

This is the Alpha Chi Omega house. In 2015, we partnered with them to host the philanthropy event Walk a Mile in Her Shoes because our philanthropies were similar at the time. A Chi O advocates for domestic violence awareness and prevention and we worked towards sexual assault awareness and prevention when our philanthropy was the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center.

12

Bellflower Road

Our pledges used to prank actives by stealing their bras and other undergarments and stringing them across Bellflower Road between the Sigma Chi and Zeta Beta Tau houses (the ZBT house was located in what is now a parking lot). This event was known campus-wide as the Sigma Psi White Sale. The brothers of the two fraternities didn’t like each other very much and would fire bottle rockets and fireworks at each other, nearly burning their houses down.

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Wolstein Hall

This building is the former Sigma Chi fraternity house. They made many of our sisters Sigma Chi little sisters and sweethearts. We used to provide lots of support and contestants for their annual philanthropy event, Derby Days.Fire and Ice was held here several times, the latest of which was in 1987. Each year we participate in Derby Days, a mini Greek Week event hosted by Sigma Chi to raise money for Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.

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Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) House

In the 1950s, we had Red parties here where the guests had to sign in as “Reds.” We also held 70s mixers and parties in the Carriage House, which was also known as the “Outpost.” Each year, we shared an annual Christmas party with FIJI in which we gave toys to underprivileged children.

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Peter B. Lewis Building

This is the former location of the Delta Tau Delta house, which burned down in the late 1980s. A lot of our historical files and items were stored here, and they were lost in the fire. Our last Fire and Ice was held here in 1988.An old pledge prank was to steal the sisters’ shoes and hang their bras from the windows. Our sisters had to serenade the brothers of DTD to get their stuff back.

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Clark Hall

When it was a part of Flora Stone Mather College, this building used to be the main classroom and gym. It was built in the 1890’s, so it was relatively new, like Sigma Psi. It was here that we initiated our first pledges in 1897. Our founding sisters then climbed the fire escape in ankle-length skirts to set off fireworks from the rooftop, catching a portion of the building on fire in the process.As a tribute to our history, there’s a room dedicated to our chapter in the basement which was dedicated by the pledge class of 1995. Additionally, sometimes we hold Sig Experience here.Before they sandblasted the building in 1989, you could see at the bottom of the fire escape the words “Elsie was here” carved into the stone. In Spring of 2017, a group of sisters gleefully scratched these words back into the building’s facade in celebration of their graduation.

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Guilford House

This used to be a women’s dorm where many Sigs lived with other sororities under a “House Mom.” They used to sneak out by the fire escape on the House Mother’s card night due to the curfew enforced at the time (11pm). When we lived in Norton and Pierce, we held chapter meetings here. Before Bellflower Road was extended, this whole area used to be grass, and Fraternity Row was located here. Sisters used to sit on the front porch and watch the Delts streak around Mather Quad during DTD Hell Week.

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Haydn Hall

Haydn Hall used to be a student center with lockers and cubbies for books and wraps as well as a cafeteria. They used to have “Banner Days” for the sororities and our banner would hang from the building. At this time, only juniors and seniors were allowed to join sororities. Additionally, in the 1950s, we held meetings in a communal sorority meeting room.

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Church of the Covenant

We used to hold chapter meetings in the basement of this church. Occasionally, the noontime bells play songs that resemble those of our sorority.

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Mary Painter Chisholm Trolley Stop

This was a trolley stop for students as well as the number one trysting spot on campus. One of our sister’s names is carved on it.A longstanding rumor says that if a virgin ever walks under the arch, it will collapse...

21

Terminal Tower (Downtown Cleveland, read on Euclid Ave.)

In 1965, the new pledge class pranked the active chapter by kidnapping their pledge mistress, Mili Larson, and taking her downtown to Terminal Tower (now Tower City) for ice cream. Mili was a fully cooperative hostage. Bound together by their successful prank, the pledges called the president from a payphone to her dorm floor phone just before she was supposed to have a meeting. Rather than speaking, they sung their pledge song, confusing many of the people at the train station who had just arrived in Cleveland from other cities. The actives were very satisfied with this prank, and were pleased with the inventiveness of the pledges.

22

Michelson-Morley Memorial Fountain

Also known as the Phallic Fountain, a group of Sigma Psi senior actives once stripped and went wading in the fountain. They threw their underwear in the trees, but they couldn’t get it down. It was Parents’ Weekend at the time and the sisters worried that their parents would recognize their undergarments decorating the trees.

23

Case Quad

There used to be a well-known security officer on campus who everyone called Officer Mark. In the spring of 2010, alum Ramya Raman, who was set to graduate in a few weeks, “borrowed” Officer Mark’s segway during APO’s Jail Break. She got to ride it for a few seconds before he caught her.

24

Strosacker Auditorium

Before it was held in the Tink, Mr. CWRU was held in Strosacker Auditorium. In Spring 2015, when the Kappa Rho pledge class was brainstorming ideas for their pledge paddle, Kayla Harris and Catherine Lange exclaimed that they had taken a wooden desk from Strosacker Auditorium. Immediately, a third sister shouted “I have a desk too!” and suddenly, there were too many stolen desks. These sisters were inspired by a 1995 pledge class who also used a Strosacker desk for their pledge paddle.

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Chemical Engineering Building

A sister was proposed to in front of this building and later got married on the same spot.

26

Sigma Psi Sidewalk

In 2003 during History Walk, several sisters noticed some wet cement here. They broke away from the group and used their keys to carve letters and their initials in it. However, the cement was not as wet as they thought, and some sisters ruined their keys.

27

Beta Theta Pi House

We used to hold annual Jell-O wrestling events with the brothers of Beta Theta Pi beginning in 1995. From 1994 to 2003, we also participated in a walk-a-thon for the American Diabetes association called the Beta Walk. The brothers of Beta Theta Pi serenade us at the beginning of each year.

28

Phi Delta Theta House

In the 1990s, the Phi Delts promised to help us with our trenches for Rope Pull. However, they changed their minds and told us that we had to make them brownies and wear short skirts in exchange for their help. We delivered the brownies as they asked, but we also put laxatives in them. They ate the brownies before a football game and, according to one Sigma Psi alum, some of the brothers had to run off the field. Some Sigma Psi actives who didn’t know about the prank ate the brownies as well.Back in the day, during Rope Pull, the most notorious Greek Week event, there used to be large pits in the middle that a team could be pulled into. Before the event, hooligans would throw things like rotting fruit into the pit making it an extra undesirable fate. We co-host this event with Phi Delt, and used to have the agreement that we would make their chapter a pasta dinner in exchange for them guarding the pit overnight to prevent anyone from throwing anything into the pit.

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Phi Kappa Psi House

The Phi Psis used to live on the other side of our current house. Until 2014, we used to have a Heaven and Hell dance with them every spring at their current house. Our chapters share the song “Piano Man” and would sing it together at the end of each dance.Some of their brothers have maintained close relationships with our sister and later married our sisters. One of our sisters was actually engaged to a Phi Psi for a short time to get her out of a housing contract.

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Kappa Alpha Theta House

The Thetas currently live on the other side of our house. We participate in Theta’s philanthropy event KATwalk every year. This event supports CASA, an organization that pairs trained mentors with children to serve as their voice during the judicial process.

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Sigma Psi House!

Sigma Psi, Home of the Goddesses!This has been our house since fall of 1992. Like with Asgaard, the Pikes carved their name into our door here, but it was removed in 2015 during renovations.Long before we lived here, in the 1960s, this used to be one big house occupied by Phi Kappa Tau. They were later banned from having an actual house because they were very rowdy and moved to Clark Tower before later being kicked off campus.The spring 2000 pledge class painted the guest bathroom with butterflies to represent their pledges.The 2012 pledge class painted the inside of the craft cabinet door as their pledge paddle.Various other pledge paddles are spread throughout the house as decorations and even furniture.The pledge class of spring 2004 made the house letters that are currently on the side of our house.The spring 2007 pledge class made the wooden letters painted with keys.In Spring 2017, we initiated a war with Phi Tau by stealing their Kappa off their living room mantle. They retaliated by stealing our green sigma and our flag. Captured items were displayed in the fourth floor windows such that they could be seen by the chapter that they were stolen from. While we had a plan to reconcile the war with by making Phi Tau new letters, their President offered a truce early, foiling our plan.