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Chi Omega
ΧΩ
File:Chi omega crest.jpg
Founded	April 5, 1895 (1895-04-05) (117 years ago) University of Arkansas (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
Type	Social
Vision statement	Sisters inspired by our values who serve the world while keeping Chi Omega ever at heart
Motto	Hellenic Culture and Christian Ideals
Colors	Cardinal      Straw
Symbol	Skull and Crossbones
Flower	White Carnation
Jewel	Pearl, Diamond
Mascot	Owl
Publication	The Eleusis
Philanthropy	Make-A-Wish Foundation
Chapters	174
Members	310,000+ collegiate
Psi chapter, University of Arkansas
Headquarters	Memphis, Tennessee, USA
Homepage	http://www.chiomega.com/

Chi Omega (ΧΩ) is a women's fraternity and the largest member of the National Panhellenic Conference.^[1] Chi Omega has 174 active collegiate chapters and over 230 alumnae chapters.^[2] Chi Omega's national headquarters is located in Memphis, Tennessee.

History[link]

Chi Omega was founded April 5, 1895 at the University of Arkansas by Dr. Charles Richardson (an initiate of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity), Ina Mae Boles, Jean Vincenheller, Jobelle Holcombe, and Alice Simonds. In 1915, Chi Omega established its executive headquarters in Lexington, Kentucky, pioneering the use of office space among all national women's fraternities, before moving to Cincinnati, Ohio in 1926. Since 1994, the Fraternity's executive headquarters has been situated on 1.5 acres (6,100 m²) in Memphis, Tennessee.

The Fraternity's colors are Cardinal and Straw, the flower is the white carnation, the mascot is the owl, and the symbol is the skull and crossbones.

Chi Omega made the Make-A-Wish Foundation its official philanthropy in 2000.

Mission[link]

Chi Omega is a sisterhood that aims to provide a network of friends and life long development for both collegiate and alumnae members. Chi Omega is committed to:

• Personal integrity
• Excellence in academic and intellectual pursuits
• Inter-generational participation
• Community service
• Leadership opportunities
• Social enrichment

Vision[link]

Chi Omega aims to be the premier national women's organisation in the 21st Century. They also aim to establish renewed respect for women, by promoting high morals and ethics, personal growth, professional development and a network of help and support, for life.

Organization[link]

The sorority's day to day business activities are overseen by the Governing Council which consists of five elected members. Each individual chapter of Chi Omega receives at least one visit per year from a National Consultant who aids in the development of the young women. Furthermore, each chapter gets additional support from Chi Omega alumnae, national volunteers, professional staff and resource manuals.

The Eleusis[link]

The Eleusis is the official publication of Chi Omega Fraternity. In continuous publication since 1899, its mission is to connect Chi Omegas to the national organization by promoting our common experiences, communicating the state of the Fraternity, affirming our values and purposes, highlighting our success stories, and providing resources for the development of women.

"I... make an earnest plea to my young sisters who may read these words. I urge you not to doff your interest in Chi Omega with your cap and gown but to regard your membership as something so precious that you will make of it a lifelong experience." - Ida Pace Purdue, National President 1904-1910 and First Editor of

Current Editor: Christine Thomas Barnicki

The Chi Omega Symphony[link]

The Symphony was written by Ethel Switzer Howard, Xi Chapter, in 1904: Chi Omega Website:

"To live constantly above snobbery of word or deed; to place scholarship before social obligations and character before appearances; to be, in the best sense, democratic rather than "exclusive", and loveable rather than "popular"; to work earnestly, to speak kindly, to act sincerely, to choose thoughtfully that course which occasion and conscience demands; to be womanly always; to be discouraged never; in a word, to be loyal under any and all circumstances to my Fraternity and her highest teachings and to have her welfare ever at heart that she may be a symphony of high purpose and helpfulness in which there is no discordant note."

Chapters[link]

Notable alumnae[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Chi Omega's official website
• Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture

Look up chi in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Chi may refer to:

Chinese

• Chi (length) (尺), a traditional Chinese unit of length ("Chinese foot"), approximately 1/3 of a meter
• Chi (mythology) (螭), a dragon in Chinese mythology
• Ch'i or qi (氣), "life-force" in Chinese culture

Greek

• Chi (letter), the Greek letter (uppercase Χ, lowercase χ);

Japanese

• Chi (kana), a Japanese kana
• 地, Japanese character ‎for Earth

other

• Chi River, Thailand
• Chi, a god in Igbo mythology

in science

• A probability distribution in mathematics:
  • Chi distribution
  • Chi-squared distribution
• Chi site, a DNA sequence that serves as a recombination hot spot
• Creatinine height ratio, a metric used in determining body composition
• A symbol for electronegativity

in fiction and popular culture

• Chi (magazine), an Italian magazine
• Chi (Chobits), a character in Chobits media
• Chi, a character in Chi's Sweet Home media
• "Chi", a song by Korn from Life Is Peachy
• Cationic Hydration Interlink (CHI), a beauty products company owned by Farouk Shami

CHI may stand for:

• Chile, the country.
• Carvill Hurricane Index, a measure of hurricane damage potential
• Catholic Health Initiatives, a faith-based, non-profit health system
• Channel Islands (Chapman code: CHI)
• Chichester, England, is known as Chi by local people in West Sussex
• Chingford railway station, railway station code
• Child Health International, a UK based charity for children's health (especially Cystic Fibrosis) in poor countries
• Columbia Helicopters, an American aircraft manufacturer
• Commission for Health Improvement, a former non-departmental public body of the Department of Health in the United Kingdom
• Computer-human interaction or human-computer interaction, the study of the interaction of computers and people
  • CHI (conference), an annual conference on computer-human interaction
• CHI, a secret society at Longwood University
• CHI, the IATA code for all Chicago airports
• CHI, the Amtrak code for Chicago Union Station
• Canada Health Infoway, a not-for-profit organization engaged in the development of a pan-Canadian electronic health record (EHR) system
• Community Health Index, a measure of the health of online communities
• Community Health Index (Scotland), a system of patient identification used in Scottish public healthcare

Sports[link]

• Chicago Blackhawks, a professional National Hockey League (NHL) ice hockey team based in Chicago, Illinois

People with the given name[link]

• Chi Cheng (musician) (born 1970), American musician
• Chi McBride (born 1961), American actor
• Chi Onwurah (born 1965), British Labour Party Politician

See also[link]

• T'ai chi ch'uan, Wade-Giles transcription for Taijiquan
• Chicago, known as Chi-Town
• A Song for Chi, an instrumental rock song
• Qi (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up Ω or ω in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Greek alphabet
Αα	Alpha	Νν	Nu
Ββ	Beta	Ξξ	Xi
Γγ	Gamma	Οο	Omicron
Δδ	Delta	Ππ	Pi
Εε	Epsilon	Ρρ	Rho
Ζζ	Zeta	Σσς	Sigma
Ηη	Eta	Ττ	Tau
Θθ	Theta	Υυ	Upsilon
Ιι	Iota	Φφ	Phi
Κκ	Kappa	Χχ	Chi
Λλ	Lambda	Ψψ	Psi
Μμ	Mu	Ωω	Omega
History
Archaic local variants
Ligatures (ϛ, ȣ, ϗ) Diacritics
Numerals (6) (90) (900)
In other languages
Bactrian Coptic Albanian
Scientific symbols
Book Category Commons view talk edit

Omega (capital: Ω, lowercase: ω; Greek Ωμέγα) is the 24th and last letter of the Greek alphabet. In the Greek numeric system, it has a value of 800. The word literally means "great O" (ō mega, mega meaning 'great'), as opposed to omicron, which means "little O" (o mikron, micron meaning "little").^[1] This name is Byzantine; in Classical Greek, the letter was called ō (ὦ), whereas the omicron was called ou (οὖ).^[2] The form of the uppercase letter derives from that of an omicron (Ο) broken up at the side (), with the edges subsequently turned outwards (, , ).^[3] The modern lowercase shape goes back to the uncial form , a form that developed during the 3rd century BC in ancient handwriting on papyrus, from a flattened-out form of the letter () that had its edges curved even further upwards.^[4]

Phonetically, the Ancient Greek Ω is a long open-mid o [ɔː], equal to the vowel of British English raw. In Modern Greek Ω represents the same sound as omicron. The letter omega is transcribed ō or simply o.

Omega (the last letter of the Greek alphabet) is often used to denote the last, the end, or the ultimate limit of a set, in contrast to alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet.

Omega was also adopted into the early Cyrillic alphabet. See Cyrillic omega (Ѡ, ѡ). A Raetic variant is conjectured to be at the origin or parallel evolution of the Elder Futhark ᛟ.

Omega was also adopted into the Latin alphabet, as a letter of the 1982 revision to the African reference alphabet. It has had little use. See Latin omega.

The symbol Ω (majuscule letter)[link]

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The majuscule letter Ω is used as a symbol:

• In physics:
  • For ohm – SI unit of electrical resistance; formerly also used upside down (℧) to represent mho, the old name for the inverse of an ohm (now siemens with symbol S) used for electrical conductance. Unicode has a separate code point for the ohm sign (U+2126, Ω), but it is only included for backwards compatibility and the Greek uppercase omega character (U+03A9, Ω) is preferred.^[5]
  • In statistical mechanics Ω refers to the multiplicity (number of microstates) in a system.
  • The solid angle or the rate of precession in a gyroscope.
  • In particle physics to represent the Omega baryons.
  • In astronomy (cosmology) Ω refers to the density of the universe, also called the density parameter.
  • In astronomy (orbital mechanics), Ω refers to the longitude of the ascending node of an orbit
• In mathematics / computer science:
  • in notation related to Big O notation to describe the asymptotic behavior of functions.
  • Chaitin's constant.
• In mathematics
  • In complex analysis, the Omega constant, a solution of Lambert's W function
  • A variable for a 2-dimensional region in calculus, usually corresponding to the domain of a double integral.
  • In topos theory, the (codomain of the) subobject classifier of an elementary topos.
  • In combinatory logic, the looping combinator, (λ x. x x) (λ x. x x)
  • In group theory, the omega and agemo subgroups of a p-group, Ω(G) and ℧(G)
  • In statistics, it is used as the symbol for the sample space, or total set of possible outcomes.
  • In physics, it is used to represent angular frequency
• As part of logo or trademark:
  • The logo of Omega Watches SA.
  • Part of the Badge of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
  • Part of the mission patch for STS-135, as it was the last mission of the Space Shuttle program.

• Other
  • The symbol of the resistance movement against the Vietnam-era draft
  • Year or date of death
  • Used to refer to the lowest-ranked wolf in a pack

The symbol ω (minuscule letter)[link]

The minuscule letter ω is used as a symbol:

• Biochemistry and chemistry:
  • Denotes the carbon atom furthest from the carboxyl group of a fatty acid.
  • In biochemistry, for one of the RNA Polymerase subunits.
  • In biochemistry, for the dihedral angle associated with the peptide group, involving the backbone atoms Cα-C'-N-Cα
  • In genomics, as a measure of evolution at the protein level (also denoted as d_N/d_S or K_a/K_s ratio).
• Physics:
  • angular velocity or angular frequency
  • Computational fluid dynamics: the specific turbulence dissipation rate
  • In circuit analysis and signal processing to represent natural frequency, related to frequency f by ω = 2πf
  • In astronomy, as a ranking of a star's brightness within a constellation
  • In astronomy (orbital mechanics), as designation of the argument of periapsis of an orbit
  • In particle physics to represent the omega meson
• Computer science:
  • In notation related to Big O notation, the asymptotically dominant nature of functions
  • In relational database theory to represent NULL, a missing or inapplicable value.
• Mathematics:
  • The first transfinite ordinal number, often identified with the set of natural numbers including 0 (sometimes written Failed to parse (Missing texvc executable; please see math/README to configure.): \omega_0

)

• • In set theory, the first uncountable ordinal number (more commonly written as ω₁)
  • The complex cube roots of 1
  • The Wright Omega function
  • A generic differential form
  • In number theory, an arithmetic function
  • In combinatory logic, the self-application combinator, (λ x. x x)
  • In mathematical/options finance, the elasticity of financial options
  • In analytical investment management, the tracking error of an investment manager
• Other:
  • Used in place of ん in Japanese typing shorthand.
  • In linguistics, the phonological word
  • In textual criticism, the archetype of a manuscript tradition
  • In sociology, used to refer to the lowest ranking member of a group

Notes[link]

1. ^ The Greek Alphabet
2. ^ Herbert Weir Smyth. A Greek Grammar for Colleges. §1
3. ^ Anne Jeffery (1961), The local scripts of archaic Greece, p.37–38.
4. ^ Edward M. Thompson (1912), Introduction to Greek and Latin paleography, Oxford: Clarendon. p.144
5. ^ Excerpts from The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0. Retrieved 11 October 2006.

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