The Mission of Sigma Alpha Epsilon is to promote the higest standards of friendship, scholarship and service for our members based upon the ideals set forth by our Founders and specifically enunciated in "The True Gentleman."

The True Gentleman is the man whose conduct proceeds
from good will and an acute sense of propriety
and whose self-control is equal to all emergencies;
who does not make the poor man conscious of his poverty,
the obscure man of his obscurity,
or any man of his inferiority or deformity;
who is himself humbled if necessity compels him to humble another;
who does not flatter wealth,
cringe before power,
or boast of his own possessions or achievements;
who speaks with frankness but always with sincerity and sympathy;
whose deed follows his word;
who thinks of the rights and feelings of others rather than his own;
and who appears well in any company;
a man with whom honor is sacred and virtue safe.

- John Walter Wayland, 1899