A Shrine of the fraternity, Our Founding is a plaque on the parade grouns of VMI depicting the founding of Sigma Nu	This marker commemorates the three fraternities founded in Lexington, VA - Sigma Nu, Kappa Alpha Order, and Alpha Tau Omega.

The Founders

The story of Sigma Nu began during the period following the Civil War, when a Confederate veteran from Arkansas enrolled at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington Virginia.

The painting The Founding of Sigma Nu by James Settles (Gamma Omnicron) is a watercolor of the first meeting of the three founders of the fraternity.

That cadet was James Frank Hopkins, and it is to him and two of his classmates that Sigma Nu owes its existence.

Hopkins was joined by Greenfield Quarles, from Arkansas, a Kentuckian by birth, and James McIlvaine Riley from St. Louis, Missouri, These three men, who were unhappy with the hazing situation at VMI, began a movement to completely abolish the hazing system. Their efforts climaxed on a moonlit October night in 1868, presumably following Bible study at the superintendent's home, when the three met at a limestone outcropping on the edge of the VMI parade ground. Hopkins, Quarles and Riley clasped hands on the Bible and gave their solemn pledge to form a brotherhood of a new society they called the Legion of Honor.

The vows taken by these three Founders bound them together to oppose hazing at VMI and encouraged the application of the Principle of Honor in all their relationships. That the founders should adopt Honor as a guiding principle was a natural move since a rigid code of Honor was already an established tradition of the VMI Corps and Cadets. The Honor system at VMI required each cadet to conform to the duty imposed by his conscience that each act be governed by a high sense of Honor.
 
Although Sigma Nu Fraternity began in October 1868 as the Legion of Honor, its existence was kept secret until the founders publicly announced their new society on the first day of January 1869, the accepted birthdate of Sigma Nu.

The Legion of Honor society in its first year assumed the outward aspects of a college Greek-letter organization. The organization kept its original name secret but was recognized publicly as Sigma Nu Fraternity. It was soon to win the respect of all.

The new Fraternity needed an identifying symbol, and the Founder Hopkins designed a Badge for the members to wear on their uniforms. That Badge was patterned after the White Cross of the French Legion of Honor and was first introduced in the spring of 1869.

 Sigma Nu Expands

Expansion began for Sigma Nu in 1870 after the graduation of the Founders, when the mother chapter at VMI, then known as Chapter I, approved the establishment of a chapter at the University of Virginia. Later, a permanent numbering system established a Greek-letter designation for chapters. Thus, Chapter I became Alpha and the University of Virginia chapter became Beta. Duke University’s Sigma Nu chapter, founded in 1871, was the third chapter to be established, and thus became known as the Gamma Chapter.
 

Sigma Nu Celebrates its 125th Year

Well into the Fraternity's second century, Sigma Nu continued its dramatic growth. Today, the number of initiates is nearly 200,000; the number of chapters approaching 250. Many of the Fraternity's chapters have initiated more than a 1,000 members, with a large number topping 1,500 and several exceeding 2,000.

Among the many significant achievements during the past decade has been the addition of adjacent properties in Lexington, Virginia, known as the Ethical Leadership Center, owned by the Sigma Nu Educational Foundation, Inc. Particularly noteworthy is Sigma Nu's interfraternity leadership in risk reduction and risk management matters followed by the introduction of its unique LEAD Program, one of the most meaningful educational initiatives ever undertaken by a college fraternity. 

For a century and a quarter Sigma Nu chapters have shaped the man of integrity. Their challenge for the future is to focus efforts and energies anew to the fuller realization of the great mission set by our Founders - to build Men of Honor, ethical leaders for society based upon the concept of the Brotherhood of Man under the Fatherhood of God. Indeed, Sigma Nu may be on the threshold of the era of its greatest achievement as it enters the 21st century.

Creed of Sigma Nu