The National Fraternity

Over 150 years ago, William Henry Letterman and Charles Page Thomas Moore--students at Jefferson College in the little town of Canonsburg, Pennsylvania--were nursing their sick friends during a typhoid fever epidemic. Through the long night vigils, they began to appreciate the joy of selflessly helping others. So, on February 19th, 1852, Letterman and Moore invited their friends to a meeting to discuss starting a brotherhood based on the joy of serving others. However, the harsh winter weather made travel impossible, so the two men alone founded Phi Kappa Psi on that very night.

While most other fraternities started from local clubs, Phi Kappa Psi was founded as a national fraternity and quickly spread its chapters and ideals to other respectable universities around the country (starting with Harvard and Princeton). Now, there are more than 130 chapters of Phi Kappa Psi on university campuses around the country. In those 150 years, Phi Kappa Psi has provided outstanding community service everywhere they are established and have fostered hundreds of renown historical figures, including:

Former U.S. President Woodrow Wilson
U.S. Senators Paul Coverdell (R-GA) and Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Astronaut Owen Garriott
Father of the U.S. Air Force, Brig. General William L "Billy" Mitchell
Actors Roy Schneider, Peter Graves, and Edward Herrmann
Olympic Athletes Mark Spitz, Kevin Berry, Michael Burton and John P. Kinsella
These are only a few of the many great Phi Psi's of the past century.

Here is a listing of all Famous Phi Psi's.

Illinois Iota

The Illinois Iota Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has many different goals while we are on campus at NIU. First we want to strive to serve others. Over the past two years Illinois Iota has enjoyed great success with Community Service with over 400 hours in each year. Second Illinois Iota strives to excel at NIU. Rather it be intramural sports, to winning awards through IFC or Phi Kappa Psi national awards, or getting the best grades on campus, we work to be the best at whatever we work towards. Finally Illinois Iota works to create men of gentleman and character by teaching the ideals needed to be both a gentleman and a man of character wherever we may be.

Our chapter is new to NIU, celebrating our 5th year on campus, as well as our 3rd year as a chartered chapter this April. One of our highest accomplishments is that every semester our chapter performs 1000 hours of community service around the Dekalb area. Over the past two academic years, Phi Kappa Psi has maintained an average GPA of a 3.0, and have also have been ranked in the top 3 highest GPAs in the Greek community. After the Fall 2009 semester our chapter's cumulative GPA average was a 3.09 eclipsing our mark of a chapter 3.0. This past year we opened the doors to our new home at 1115 N. Annie Glidden Rd. Dekalb, IL. Our house rooms 42 men making it the 2nd highest rooming capacity at NIU. Our property is also the largest square foot lot among the Greeks at NIU. The Phi Kappa Psi fraternity was created for the great joy in serving others, whether it is out helping the community, or showing the rest of NIU what a true gentleman is, the Phi Psis at NIU are leaders on the campus. Come find out where students become leaders at NIU.

The Creed

This creed, known to all of its brothers, defines the principles on which our fraternity was founded:

I believe that Phi Kappa Psi is a brotherhood of honorable men, courteous and cultured, who pledge throughout their lives to be generous, compassionate and loyal comrades;

I believe that I am honor bound to strive manfully for intellectual, moral, and spiritual excellence; to help and forgive my Brothers; to discharge promptly all just debts; to give aid and sympathy to all who are less fortunate;

I believe that I am honor bound to strengthen my character and deepen my integrity; to counsel and guide my brothers who stray from their obligations; to respect and emulate my Brothers who practice moderation in their manners and morals; to be ever mindful that loyalty to my Fraternity should not weaken loyalty to my college, but rather increase devotion to it, to my country, and to my God;

I believe that to all I meet, wherever I go, I represent not only Phi Kappa Psi, but indeed the spirit of all fraternities; thus I must ever conduct myself so as to bring respect and honor not to myself alone, but also to my Fraternity;

To the fulfillment of these beliefs, of these ideals, in the noble perfection of Phi Kappa Psi, I pledge my life and my sacred honor.

Written by John Henry Frizzell, Massachusetts Alpha 1898,
and Kent Christopher Owen, Indiana Beta 1958,
Adopted by the 1964 Grand Arch Council.