Chi Epsilon is the United States’s national civil engineering honor society. It was initially founded on May 20, 1922 as the CHI EPSILON FRATERNITY by civil engineering students at the University of Illinois. Then on February 13, 1923, Chi Epsilon’s petition to become a national honorary civil engineering fraternity was granted by the State of Illinois and a certificate of incorporation was issued. Following the installation of the Armour Chapter at the Armour Institute of Technology on March 29, 1923, membership for the organization took off. By late April of 1923, the national organization had increased to three chapters. Since then, Chi Epsilon National has grown exponentially, and by following its four principles of scholarship, character, practicality, and sociability, it has established civil engineering as an eminent industry.

 

Chi Epsilon is an organization dedicated to the purpose of maintaining and promoting the status of civil engineering as an ideal profession. It was formed to recognize the characteristics of the individual civil engineer deemed to be fundamental to the successful pursuit of an engineering career, and to aid in the development of those characteristics in the civil engineering student.

 

Engineering – the application of scientific principles to the practical needs of society – is assuming a constantly increasing responsibility for the well-being of all people, and thus it calls for competence of the highest order. This responsibility can be discharged only by a professional group whose members are possessed of a good basic technical ability, intelligence, moral integrity, and effective social poise in their relationship with the larger community of which they are part. To contribute to the improvement of the profession, Chi Epsilon fosters the development and exercise of sound traits of character and technical ability among civil engineers, and its members, by precept and example, toward an ever higher standard of professional service.

 

Adapted from the Chi Epsilon Exam Review Packet – Fall 2009