It’s August 1. I will fully admit I am not sure how we arrived at this date or what happened to June and July. It was just Memorial Day the day before yesterday and we were in Pennsylvania, touring the hallowed GLO ground of Washington and Jefferson College. Smack dab and it’s now the dawning of another academic year.
The twitter feed is full of “it’s almost recruitment” posts. It’s also a ripe time for the “if it’s on the internet somewhere, it must be true” posts about the benefits of fraternity and sorority life.
Exhibit A –
This appeared on twitter within the last week.
Here are the current statistics from the NIC website (http://www.nicindy.org/fraternity-statistics.html):
- Greeks in 112th US Congress: 42 Senators (42%), 101 Congressmen (23%)
- Greeks in 113th US Congress: 39 Senators (39%), 106 Congressmen (24%)
- 50% of the Top 10 Fortune 500 CEOs are fraternity men; 15% of Fortune 100 CEOs are Greek
- 44% of all US Presidents have been members of a social fraternity
- 31% of all US Supreme Court Justices have been fraternity alumni
I dare someone to do the research that would take to compute the 63% of all U.S. Cabinet members since 1900 factoid. I have no doubt that there was a year in time when it was a correct number, but I suspect it was a long time ago, perhaps when the grandparents, or even great-grandparents of today’s potential new members were just young ones themselves.
As for the astronaut statistics, see http://wp.me/p20I1i-le. Short story – Sally Ride was at Stanford when there were no NPC organizations there. And as for Apollo 11, only Neil Armstrong was a fraternity man. His Phi Delta Theta badge did indeed travel to the moon with him. For the debunking of other GLO myths see http://wp.me/p20I1i-2JE
The graphic which appears above included its source. However, a trip to the url produced this screen.
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A reader of this blog sent me a link to the obituary of Dr. Thomas Spotswood Glazebrook Jr., a Columbia, South Carolina physician, whose funeral was held yesterday. “Spots” as he was affectionately known, according to the obituary, was the great-grandson of Otis Allan Glazebook, one of the three founders of Alpha Tau Omega. Dr. Glazebrook was an initiate of the ATO chapter at the University of South Carolina. The obituary noted, “In lieu of flowers and memorials, if one wishes to honor the life of Dr. Glazebrook, his family suggests that a selfless act be done for a person in need.” Condolences to the family, friends and ATO brothers of Dr. Glazebrook.
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It is with a heavy heart that we bring the news of the death of our undergraduate brother Michael Lopez, Florida International ’17.
He was shot and killed on July 30th. Our hearts go out to his family, friends and chapter brothers during this time.
May the red rose serve as an expression of our enduring fraternal love for our departed brother. #VDBL #SigEpStrong
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2016. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
