The Kappa Sigma House
A space that encapsulates rituals, members, and renovations
In 1960 construction began on the Kappa Sigma fraternity house located at 1003 McKenzie Drive. It was designed by Dallas architect E. O. Oglesby Jr and cost about $55,000 to construct. The style was referred to in The Megaphone as “Texas Colonial”. By the summer of 1961 construction was complete.
This house is not the first that Kappa Sigma has occupied during the organization’s time at Southwestern. According to Max Schien, class of 2022 and former House Manager chair, this is our third house. He told me that the last two houses burned down. He believed that the current house was purposefully constructed using stone brick and limestone so it would be ‘impossible’ to burn down. Additionally, I remember him telling me that the reason we do not have a fireplace was a conscious decision by the builder to reduce the risk of another fire as the previous houses featured fireplaces.
From its construction in 1960 to today in 2023, memory has been collected and captured in several ways. Fraternities across America are sites of vast and rich memory collection. There is an especially strong collective effort by Greek organizations nationwide to memorialize rituals and members; Kappa Sigma is not unique in this effort. The Kappa Sigma house also physically captures the changes the structure has undergone through the years.
Fraternities and sororities nationally share the common practice of displaying composite photos as a way to remember past members of the organization. At Kappa Sigma, the oldest composite on display is from the 1903-1904 academic year. Taking composite pictures has recently become a fun practice that brothers look forward to every year. In the 1903-1904 composite all the way through the composites of the 1990’s, there is a sense of formality which, although it allows us to see what our former members looked like, lacks character and uniqueness.
Beginning in the early 2000’s, composite photos began developing uniqueness and themes which allow current members to see the personality of members of past academic years along with the collective identity of the Kappa Sigma fraternity. The composites of recent years capture the collective identity within the chapter and show how it changes over time.
In terms of ritual, like composites, all fraternities and sororities have their own that make them unique. There are unfortunately some very interesting rituals I am not allowed to talk about because I am currently a member of Kappa Sigma, but one of the best examples of physical memorial and ritual is our bombshell. Each semester, when students decide to rush, their ‘pledge class’ uses their hands to paint this bombshell red and green, the colors of Kappa Sigma. Each semester when this happens, the bomb takes on a different look: sometimes being more red, other times more green. The clothes the pledges wear at the time of painting the bombshell become covered and stained with the paint. The paint stained clothes and the bombshell become objects that memorialize the beginning of pledgeship.
Another tradition that I enjoy is giving away “will-downs”. This is when graduating seniors pass down objects that pertain to the organization to younger members. These objects are most commonly Kappa T-shirts from past years but can also be anything relevant to the person giving the object away. By doing this, past objects continue to be passed down throughout the years. This is why current members still have bid-day T-shirts from the early 2000’s.
Individuals within Kappa Sigma also make efforts to memorialize their own place in the organization outside of a collective standpoint. An example of this individual aspect of memory is the carving of one’s own name into the limestone walls of rooms. The rooms in Kappa Sigma are covered in carved names, often accompanied by graduation year or the year that they resided in that room. What makes this phenomenon an individual one is that nobody talks about carving their name in the wall and nobody is encouraged to do so. Members, including myself, simply feel the need to leave their physical mark on the walls so we can come back several years later to see it.
The basic infrastructure of the house has largely remained unchanged since its construction in 1961. However, a couple of major renovations have occurred since. One major renovation was the construction of the second story porch, informally known as the “broverhang,” which was built in 2006. By constructing the broverhang, there needed to be a way for people on the second floor to access it from inside the house. This is why there are now only 9 rooms upstairs when there were originally 10. One of the bedrooms was roughly converted into a hallway to provide an entrance to the broverhang. There was not a large effort to make the space look more like a hallway. As you can see in the pictures below, there is still a closet which is the same size as closets in other rooms.
Another big renovation occurred because the practice of having a “house mom” ended at Kappa Sigma. Many years ago, it was common for fraternities to have a woman living on-site. They were essentially residential directors whose role largely was to make sure fraternity men were not doing anything stupid by keeping a close eye on them. They also made sure the men were cleaning up after themselves. Kappa Sigma’s former house moms occupied the room now known as the Lumber Room. When this practice ended, the separate bedroom was converted into a living room. Because the house mom’s room was separate, there was a private door leading outside that allowed her to access the room. The separation and private nature of the room can be felt to this day.
Overall the Kappa Sigma house is a site rich in memory. It is a place that makes an effort to memorialize itself, past members, and collective ritual and memory. Memory can be seen almost everywhere and it can range from formal (official composites) to informal (carved names in the walls).
