The Rho Psi Society () is an honorary Greek letter fraternity. Although founded as a student society, it is no longer active at the collegiate level. The objectives of the Society are to promote and perpetuate friendship among members; to develop congeniality and brotherhood in the fraternal life; and to cultivate the spirit of cooperation and self-sacrifice.

History

Su Yu She, the (''Society for Respecting Friends'') was founded in 1916 at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

as a general club for male students of

Chinese descent Overseas Chinese () refers to people of Chinese birth or ethnicity who reside outside Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. As of 2011, there were over 40.3 million overseas Chinese. Terminology () or ''Hoan-kheh'' () in Hokkien, ref ...

, with its Chinese name. The original founders, Chih Ping, L. N. Lau, Y. C. Yang, K. C. Lay, and C. K. Cheng, were all of Chinese origin. The name was changed to Rho Psi Fraternity in 1918. The Founders of Rho Psi may have sought, but been excluded from the fraternities of the time, but it is more likely that they sought formation of their own group for cultural affinity faced with a very small population of collegians of the same ethnic background. Mirroring society, colleges and universities, housing and dining halls, and Greek Letter organizations were all more insular in Rho Psi's founding era. This common campus culture didn't shift toward a more integrated approach until the ethnic, religious and racial social mixing that occurred with the massive return of more integration-minded GIs after WWII. Rho Psi was the first club with Greek letters for Asian students in what is now the

Ivy League The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight school ...

. It was a pioneer, established long before most multicultural or cultural-affinity Greek Letter organizations.Cornell's Commitment to Diversity: History
/ref> The ''Alpha chapter'', which maintained a house, existed on the Cornell campus until 1931. Rho Psi became national in 1925 with the establishment of another chapter in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, and the fraternity gained international status in 1929 with a chapter in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

. It appears in four editions of ''

Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities ''Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities'' was a compendium of fraternities and sororities in the United States and Canada, published between 1879 and 1991.Lurding, Carroll and Becque, Fran. Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities'' Urban ...

''. At its 1976 convention in

State College, Pennsylvania State College is a home rule municipality in Centre County in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is a college town, dominated economically, culturally and demographically by the presence of the University Park campus of the Pennsylvania Sta ...

, Su Yu She adopted the name Rho Psi Society, and at the same time, voted that women would be admitted to membership. In 2009 Rho Psi was rechartered at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the publi ...

as the ''Sigma chapter''. There are now a large number of collegiate Asian-American clubs.

Chapters

Chapters of Rho Psi include the following. Chapters in bold are active, chapters in ''italics'' are inactive.

References

{{reflist 1916 establishments in New York (state) Asian-American history Asian-American fraternities and sororities Fraternities and sororities in the United States Cornell University student organizations Student organizations established in 1916