As the Greek system at Columbia continues to expand, male students will soon have a new gateway into fraternity life.
The fraternity Sigma Alpha Mu—known to many as “Sammy”—will establish a chapter at Columbia for the third time in 100 years. A historically Jewish fraternity that is nationally partnered with Hillel and Chabad, Sammy will reopen at Columbia in light of an increased interest in Greek life among students, a strong alumni base, and in celebration of its centennial year as a social organization.
“When you have a group around for over one hundred years, it’s bound to disappear once or twice,” Matthew Jacobson, the Expansion Consultant for Sigma Alpha Mu who is currently working to create Columbia’s chapter, said, explaining the fraternity’s reemergence at Columbia. The fraternity first began here in 1911, but closed, then reopened years later, and then closed again due to problems concerning recruiting and additional factors that Jacobson said every fraternity experiences.
The Columbia chapter has not yet been nationally recognized. It is still considered a “colony,” which means that it is in the pledge process as a chapter. A colony is comprised of a group of “candidates” or “pledges” who must meet certain standards before the group can be considered an official fraternity. According to Jacobson, these standards include defined goals concerning philanthropy, community service, alumni relations, and other objectives that will better New York City and Greek life as a whole.
And when Sigma Alpha Mu becomes officially recognized, it will face several challenges on the road to garnering student interest. Among these obstacles will be attracting enough students to start the chapter. Jacobson said he is hoping to start with a benchmark number of eight students, and build a support base from there. But he said that numbers are not of prime importance.
“We’re not looking just to get numbers. We want quality guys as well,” Jacobson said. “I told them, ‘You need to be focused for success as a whole.’”
Furthermore, another historically Jewish fraternity—Alpha Epilson Pi—currently operates on campus. Some worry that students who would have been potentially interested in joining Sammy will join AEPi instead, particularly because the fraternity has a Brownstone building for members to live in. But Jacobson and Brett Robbins, CC ’09 and president of Columbia’s chapter of AEPi, are not concerned about the possible competition.
“As far as worrying about competition, I think that competition in the Greek community is healthy to some extent,” Robbins said. “We compete with fraternities every semester, and although we’re not necessarily looking for the exact same people, everyone’s just looking for quality brothers. The brotherhood is not too worried about it.”
Jacobson said that there are enough Jewish students on Columbia’s campus to far exceed membership in both of these fraternities. He added that members are not required to be Jewish, because the fraternity is “a social organization, not a religious one.”
“Not every Jewish person is the same, so they’re not all going to be interested in one fraternity,” Jacobson said. “What I would tell someone in AEPi if they were worried about us entering the fraternity world here is that it generally creates more interest in Jewish people joining the Greek system.”
