Our History

Twice founded. Never finished.

A chapter that predates the twentieth century, survived the abolition of Greek life at Tech, and rebuilt itself from nothing in 1971. The charter has come down before. The brotherhood has never gone with it.

1875✦1971✦2026 151 years in BlacksburgFounded, outlawed, reborn, and carried forward by a roll of 830 brothers.
The long arc

From the earliest days of Tech.

  • 1875

    The chapter is founded at what was then a young Virginia Agricultural and Mechanical College. Composite photographs from the 1880s survive in the chapter archive.

  • The dark years

    Virginia Tech outlaws Greek life entirely, and for decades the chapter, like every fraternity at Tech, ceases to exist on campus.

  • 1971

    Greek life returns to Blacksburg, and the chapter is re-chartered as Nu Prime. The charter class rebuilds the brotherhood from nothing; brothers of that class still serve the association today.

  • 1971–2024

    Fifty-three years of pledge classes. 830 brothers on the roll: engineers, officers, builders, fathers, Hokies.

  • 2026

    The chapter surrenders its charter and is classified dormant. The association carries on. This page is part of that.

Composite portrait: The Chartered Brothers of Nu Prime Chapter, 1971, Virginia Polytechnic Institute The charter class · 1971
Spring 2026

What happened to the charter.

Virginia Tech requires recognized student organizations to sign a membership agreement that obligates the national organization to take disciplinary action against a chapter whenever the university does. Kappa Sigma national declines to sign agreements of that kind, a policy it holds across roughly a fifth of its chapters nationwide.

Without university recognition, recruitment could not be sustained, and despite years of work by alumni advisors, the district governor, and the active brothers themselves, the chapter could no longer carry its membership or its finances. In spring 2026 the actives made the difficult decision to surrender the charter, and Kappa Sigma national classified Nu Prime as dormant.

Dormant is not dissolved.

The distinction matters. The charter was surrendered, not revoked; the door to recolonization remains open, particularly if the relationship between Virginia Tech and national fraternities evolves. This chapter has come back from further away than this: in 1971 there was no roll, no house, and no living memory on campus, and the charter class built it anyway.

What comes next

The association is the chapter now.

Until there are letters on campus again, Nu Prime lives in its alumni: the newsletter, the reunions, the roll, and the fund the membership has built over the years. At the June 2026 gathering in Blacksburg, the membership weighed the association’s roughly $30,000 in funds and leaned toward a simple posture: retain most of it for the future, and invest some of it now in reaching every Nu Prime brother, especially the classes of the last ten years.

Follow along in the newsletter

“Not for a day, or an hour, or a college term only, but for Life.”