40 Fun Facts About Phi Sigma Sigma

Which fashion icon, who signed a modeling contract at age 97, joined Phi Sigma Sigma at the University of Wisconsin?

Iris Apfel served as vice president of her chapter, decades before a 2005 Metropolitan Museum show of her wardrobe made her a style star in her eighties.

Which actress, who played the medium Tangina in Poltergeist, joined Phi Sigma Sigma at the University of Pittsburgh?

Zelda Rubinstein earned a bacteriology degree there and worked as a blood-bank lab technician until 1978, when she decided to try acting.

Founded by ten New York students in 1913, Phi Sigma Sigma was the first collegiate sorority to do what?

Its founders chose to admit women of all faiths at a time when that was not the norm, which made Phi Sigma Sigma the first nonsectarian sorority.

Phi Sigma Sigma's official hymn shares its name, Liebestraum, with a piano nocturne published in 1850 by which composer?

Franz Liszt first conceived his three Liebesträume as songs set to German poems, and the third became by far the most familiar.

Phi Sigma Sigma's Nancy Pimental, a chemical engineering graduate, wrote for which animated series from 1998 to 2001?

South Park credits her on 25 episodes; she also replaced Jimmy Kimmel as co-host of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money.

Amy Diaz, a founding sister of a Phi Sigma Sigma chapter, won which reality competition alongside her boyfriend?

The Amazing Race crowned Diaz and Jason Case in its 23rd season, after the couple had finished second on six legs along the way.

Which gemstone, the same mineral as ruby in a different color, is the official jewel of Phi Sigma Sigma?

Sapphire is the name for corundum in every color but red, and the sorority set the stones as the eyes of its original gold badge.

Which creature of Egyptian and Greek legend is Phi Sigma Sigma's official symbol and the name of its magazine?

The Sphinx also crowns the coat of arms, and the magazine named for it was launched in the 1920s to draw widely scattered chapters closer together.

Phi Sigma Sigma was founded in 1913 at which New York college, renamed the next year for its first president?

Hunter was still called the Normal College when the sorority began, and its main campus has stood on the same Manhattan avenue since 1873.

Which charity, organizer of the first US Transplant Games, was Phi Sigma Sigma's main philanthropy from 1971 to 2013?

The National Kidney Foundation partnership ran for 42 years, and the sorority's foundation was a major sponsor of the Transplant Games for organ recipients.

Phi Sigma Sigma's open motto, the Greek phrase Diokete Hupsala, is translated as which two-word instruction?

Aim High appears in its Greek form on the sorority's coat of arms, written across twin scrolls beside the founding year.

The Phi Sigma Sigma hand sign and the acronym LITP both stand for Love in the what?

Pyramid imagery runs through the sorority: sisters shape one with the fingers of both hands, and the jeweled badge of 1951 is built on a gold one.

Which rose variety, also the official flower of Washington, D.C., is the official flower of Phi Sigma Sigma?

American Beauty was actually bred in France in 1875 under another name, then became the best-selling rose in the United States until the 1920s.

Which deep shade joins gold as one of the two official colors of Phi Sigma Sigma?

King blue and gold are echoed in the original badge, a gold base with the three Greek letters picked out in blue enamel.

Phi Sigma Sigma's charitable arm created its Twin Ideals Fund for disaster victims in response to which event?

The September 11 attacks prompted the fund, which went on to send aid after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina.

Phi Sigma Sigma's twin ideals are the alleviation of the world's pain and the promotion of what?

The brotherhood of man is one half of a pair of ideals dating to 1913, and the pair later gave its name to a disaster-relief fund.

Phi Sigma Sigma's mission is to inspire each sister's personal development and perpetuate the advancement of what?

Womanhood is the core of the mission, which the sorority backs with scholarships and educational grants for its own members.

Phi Sigma Sigma chapters run backpack builds and supply drives for local schools in which federal funding category?

Title I partner schools receive backpacks, supplies and grants paid for through each chapter's Community Impact Fund.

In World War II, Phi Sigma Sigma paid for which Red Cross vehicle, assigned to follow troops in North Africa?

A Clubmobile was a rolling canteen whose volunteer crews served soldiers coffee and fresh donuts; the sorority presented its check in 1944.

Jennie Grossinger, Phi Sigma Sigma's first National Patroness, ran a famous resort hotel in which mountain region?

The Catskills hotel that bore her family name grew from a small farm her father bought in 1914; the sorority installed her as patroness in 1960.

After a three-year search begun in 2011, Phi Sigma Sigma's charitable arm chose which nonprofit as a partner?

Kids In Need Foundation was one of two partners chosen; the other, Practice Makes Perfect, was dropped after it became a for-profit company in 2016.

Which cause did Phi Sigma Sigma's charitable arm adopt as its focus after a member survey and focus groups?

School and college readiness won out, on the reasoning that giving children the right tools in the classroom also prepares them to succeed outside it.

Which sports journalist, a Phi Sigma Sigma sister from Penn, became ESPN's first female correspondent in 1989?

Andrea Kremer had already been the first female producer at NFL Films, and in 2018 she and Hannah Storm formed the first all-women booth to call an NFL game.

Which wheelchair racer, first to win four major marathons in one year, joined Phi Sigma Sigma's Theta chapter?

Tatyana McFadden swept Boston, London, Chicago and New York in 2013, four years after entering her first marathon on a lark and winning it.

Which Phi Sigma Sigma sister, called the mother of the soap opera, created Guiding Light and As the World Turns?

Irna Phillips studied drama as a student and worked as a teacher in Ohio before launching her first radio serial, Painted Dreams, on a Chicago station.

Phi Sigma Sigma's Irma Kalish, later a sitcom producer, began writing with her husband on which comedy duo's radio show?

Martin and Lewis moved from radio to television and the Kalishes moved with them; Irma went on to write and produce for The Facts of Life and 227.

Phi Sigma Sigma's first expansion, in 1918, created a Beta chapter at which university in Medford, Massachusetts?

Tufts got the second chapter five years after the founding, because a friend of one of the founders took an interest in the young sorority.

Phi Sigma Sigma became international in 1930 with a chapter at the main university of which Canadian province?

Manitoba's Upsilon chapter counted among its early sisters Evelyn Blankstein, a star athlete who spent nearly 40 years as an architect in Winnipeg.

Which Philadelphia university hosts Xi, the Phi Sigma Sigma chapter with the longest unbroken run, dating to 1926?

Temple's chapter has never closed, whereas older chapters, the original Alpha among them, went dormant or had to be revived.

Which umbrella group for sororities made Phi Sigma Sigma an associate member in 1947 and a full member in 1951?

The National Panhellenic Conference grew out of a 1902 meeting in Chicago, and calls itself a conference because it passes no binding legislation.

Phi Sigma Sigma began under a different name that was already taken; which Greek letter was originally its third?

Omega gave way to a second Sigma once the founders learned that another organization was already using their first choice of name.

In 1968 Phi Sigma Sigma's founding chapter split, adding an Alpha Alpha chapter at Lehman College in which borough?

The Bronx campus had been a branch of the founders' own college until it became independent; both chapters later went dormant.

Which office, named for the chief magistrates of ancient Athens, do Phi Sigma Sigma chapter presidents hold?

Archon comes from a Greek word meaning ruler, and the sorority's international president is styled the Grand Archon.

What is the name of Phi Sigma Sigma's international governing board, first elected at its 1918 convention?

Supreme Council members were first chosen at the same New York convention that approved the constitution, five years after the founding.

Which Phi Sigma Sigma founder, a teacher who wrote most of its rituals, became its first national president in 1918?

Fay Chertkoff, whose given name was Freida, led the sorority for its first two years as a national organization, from 1918 to 1920.

Which Phi Sigma Sigma founder finished high school at 11, entered college at 15 and became its youngest member?

Jeanette Lipka Furst graduated at 18, taught fifth grade, earned a doctorate in audio-visual education and mentored sisters for many years.

What is the small pin showing a chapter's Greek letters, chained to a Phi Sigma Sigma badge, called?

A guard pin hangs from a small gold chain and is worn lower than the badge, tying each sister to her own chapter.

According to Phi Sigma Sigma tradition, where on the body do initiated members wear the badge?

Over the heart, or near it, is the rule, and a badge may never be sold, given or loaned to anyone who is not an initiated member.

Phi Sigma Sigma is a sorority, but which word, more usual for men's groups, does it use for itself in official policies?

Fraternity is the sorority's own word for itself: its leaders speak of serving the Fraternity, and its rules are titled Fraternity policies.

Phi Sigma Sigma's Theta chapter, chartered in 1923 and rechartered in 2013, is at which Big Ten university?

Illinois saw nearly 200 women pledge the reborn chapter in a single month, in time for the sorority's centennial celebrations.