Beta Sigma Rho

Beta Sigma Rho was an American social fraternity founded at Cornell University in 1910. Most of its active chapters were absorbed into Pi Lambda Phi fraternity in 1972.

History

Beta Sigma Rho was formed on October 12, 1910, at Cornell University. It was originally named Beta Samach, "the Greek Beta and the Hebrew Samach suggesting the application of the Greek society idea to the social and cultural life of the Jewish undergraduate". Its founders were Nathaniel E. Koenig, Lester D. Krohn, M. H. Milman, and M. M. Milman.
Beta Samach was notable for a lack of initiation fees and dues and was slow to establish a constitution, ritual or the other surface attributes standard to other fraternal organizations. No formal expansion program existed for its first decade even while a Beta chapter emerged at Penn State, and Gamma chapter at Columbia. By the end of its first decade, growing pressure on the fraternity's trustees by its members resulted in the establishment of a structure of dues and fees, along with a constitution and new operational program.
On April 21, 1920, pragmatic adjustments resulted in a recasting of Beta Samach with a new name, Beta Sigma Rho, around the time of the establishment of its Delta chapter at Buffalo.
During the fraternity's approximately 62-year history, it eventually chartered chapters at fifteen colleges, including two in Canada. The fraternity gradually removed religious requirements from its governing documents, reflecting this change in its ritual in 1950.

Merger

Beta Sigma Rho merged with Pi Lambda Phi on December 12, 1972, whose records indicate the latter fraternity gained five active chapters and merged two chapters. At Cornell, the original Beta Sigma Rho house survived the merger, with the Pi Lambda Phi house folding, and the Beta Sig house was renamed Pi Lambda Phi starting the next school year. That Pi Lam chapter folded several years later.
The chapter at Pennsylvania State University's main campus would not agree to a merger with the existing Pi Lambda Phi chapter on the campus, therefore the Beta chapter of Beta Sigma Rho became the local fraternity Beta Sigma Beta.
At the time of the merger, Beta Sigma Rho's total membership was 5,380. Its headquarters were in New York City.

Symbols

The badge was a shepherd's staff crossed with a sword behind a shield. A plumed helmet was atop the shield, with 13 pearls placed on the circumference, and the letters ΒΣΡ placed vertically. The badge was gold, highlighted with black.
Colors of the society were blue and gold. Its publication was The Beta Sigma Rho New Letter.

Chapters

These were the chapters of Beta Sigma Rho.

Chapter	Charter date and range	Institution	Location	Status
Alpha	–	Cornell University	Ithaca, New York	Merged
Beta	–	Pennsylvania State University	University Park, Pennsylvania	Withdrew
Gamma	–	Columbia University	New York City, New York	Inactive
Delta	–196x ?	University at Buffalo	Buffalo, New York	Inactive
Epsilon	–	University of Pennsylvania	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania	Merged
Zeta	–	Carnegie Mellon University	Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania	Merged
Eta	–19xx ?	University of Toronto	Toronto, Ontario, Canada	Inactive
Theta	–	Rutgers University–Newark	Newark, New Jersey	Merged
Iota	–	University of Western Ontario	London, Ontario, Canada	Merged
Kappa	–	University of Kentucky	Lexington, Kentucky	Inactive
Lambda	–	Syracuse University	Syracuse, New York	Merged
Mu	–	University of Miami	Coral Gables, Florida	Inactive
Nu	–	New York University	New York City, New York	Inactive
Xi	–	City College of New York	New York City, New York	Withdrew
Omicron	–	St. John's University	New York City, New York	Merged