Local History
In 1929 the Cleveland Institute of Technology was renamed Fenn College. Having a new found purpose for their school, a group of young men started a new social fraternity to commemorate the re-naming of their school. Then on January 4th 1929, these men founded Pi Sigma Tau Alpha Fraternity. The “Pi Sigs” were one of the more successful fraternities on the Fenn College campus and during WW2, purchased the chapter’s first house at 2429 Prospect Ave. The “Pi Sigs” are still remembered today with a display in the University Archives.
In 1963 the state of Ohio made the announcement that Fenn College would become a state school and would officially be renamed The Cleveland State University by 1964. Subsequently, all of the fraternities and sororities which were local organizations before this made the decision to affiliate themselves with established national organizations. After that, on May 26th 1963, Pi Sigma Tau Alpha joined the national fraternity Delta Sigma Phi and became the Delta Omega Chapter.
During the second half of the 1960s the Delta Omega Chapter saw significant growth and success on campus. This growth culminated in 1969 under the presidency of Bill Russell, with 113 active members, which is still the largest fraternity chapter Cleveland State University has ever seen. During these “golden years” the fraternity sold its first house to Cleveland State University and acquired its second house at 3334 Prospect Ave.
The Fraternity continued its success through the 1970s and most of the 1980s. Towards the end of the 1980s, as enrollment at Cleveland State began to decline and the average age of the students began to rise, the culture towards Greek life on campus began to diminish and the Delta Sigs saw a decline in active membership. In 1991, a non-brother assaulted a woman in the Delta Sig house and the University placed a recruitment hold on the chapter. The decline in enrollment coupled with the recruitment freeze led to the eventual demise of the Delta Omega Chapter. In 1992, the house at 3334 Prospect was sold to pay off the chapter’s debt with the national office. In 1993, a 30 man initiative was instituted by the national offices of Delta Sigma Phi. This initiative stated that all of the active chapters must increase their membership to at least 30 brothers before the end of the 1994 school year. The Delta Omega Chapter was not able to meet this goal and was subsequently shut down on March 1st 1994. This was a major blow to the hundreds of Delta Sigma Phi and Pi Sigma Tau Alpha alumni who were still very much active in the Cleveland area.
Even in the absence of an undergraduate chapter, the alumni sailed on. The money remaining from the sale of the house was put aside in order to keep the operations going for the dream of one day seeing the Fraternity return to Cleveland State University. These dreams began to come to fruition in the fall semester of 2003, when Jeff Hayden approached Bill Russell (Greek Life Coordinator and Delta Sig Alumnus). Mr. Hayden was disenchanted with the current selection of fraternities on Cleveland State’s campus and sought alternatives.
Mr. Russell told Mr. Hayden about Delta Sigma Phi and how it still had an active alumni base. This was an opportunity too good for Mr. Hayden to pass up and the Delta Omega Fraternal Interest Group (DO) was born.
Even though the DOs were not officially a national fraternity yet, they began to make a significant impact on the community around them. No one had seen this kind of tenacity from a fraternity and the DOs brought Greek Life back to the forefront of Cleveland State. With a push in recruitment, the DOs reached the needed amount of active members and were officially recognized by Delta Sigma Phi on February 11th 2004. On March 24th 2004, 24 men were initiated as the Founding Fathers of the Delta Omega Colony of Delta Sigma Phi Fraternity. Saher Abouhmoud was the first president of the re-established colony.
It was then the fraternity’s goal to once again become the Delta Omega Chapter. The Fraternity had many bench marks it would have to meet in order to become a Chapter again, including beating Cleveland State’s all men’s GPA average and having at least 30 active brothers. This goal was met in spectacular fashion at the conclusion of the Spring 2006 semester. Not only did the colony meet all of the national fraternity’s guidelines, the Chapter also became the first student organization ever in CSU history to sweep the annual awards banquet. The Delta Sigs won the Student Organization Leadership Award, the Student Organization Service Award, and Student Organization of the Year Award.
At the end of the Spring 2006 semester, the Chapter began a lease to own program on a new house, The Fine Arts Building, at 3226 Euclid Ave. On September 12th 2006, the Chapter received its charter and the Delta Omega Colony officially became the Delta Omega Chapter. Today, the Chapter continues to strive for excellence in everything it does and works to improve the overall quality of student life at Cleveland State.
In Spring/Summer of 2009 the ACB terminated the lease on the Fine Arts Building, at 3226 Euclid Ave. This has come due to a number of reasons, mostly that the chapter could not effectively fill the house. As a resurgance of leadership began to pick up, the Delta Omega chapter had won consecutive Greek Organization of the Year awards in 2011 and 2012. During the 2012-2013 years, Delta Omega continued to sweep Greek Awards at Cleveland State taking home Outstanding New Member Education Award, Outstanding Community Engagement Award, Most Outstanding Programming Award, Top GPA, and Individual Awards including consecutive New Member of the Year Awards by Brothers Zach Douglas (2013) and Sedrick Bolden (2014), and the Greek Man of the Year award honoring Brothers Marwan Alie (2011), Kyle Kubovcik (2013), and Nicholas Hinkle (2016)
List of Presidents:
*Since recolonization in 2004
2003: Sahar Abouhmoud
2004: Charles Katelanos
2005: Joey Marginian
2006: Nicholas Hardy
2007: John Roman
2008: Chad Justice
2009: Thomas "Doogie" Dlugapolsky
2010: Bryan Yost
2011: Brody Fiesler
2012: Paul Noble
2013: Kyle Kubovcik
2014: Sam Marunowski
2015: Nicholas Hinkle
2016: Paul Zigmont
2017: Nick Huxell
2018: Nick Burkhammer