Phyllis George “brought great honor to both local and national Zeta chapters when she was first crowned Miss Dallas, then Miss Texas and finally Miss America,” according to the Zeta Tau Alpha page in the 1971 Yucca, the yearbook of North Texas State University.
Miss America 1971, Phyllis George, initiated into the Gamma Phi chapter at NTSU (now University of North Texas). However, a scholarship to Texas Christian University came with the Miss Texas crown. She transferred her membership to the Gamma Psi chapter at TCU.
In 1974, she said “yes” and became a co-host of The NFL Today, a pregame show on CBS. She was a pioneer as a woman in television sports reporting. She was also an entrepreneur, author, and former First Lady of Kentucky. Her greatest achievement was as a mother to daughter Pamela and son Lincoln according to a Themis interview.
At the 2012 ZTA Convention in Louisville, Kentucky, George was named an Outstanding Alumna. Due to illness, she was unable to be at the convention to accept the award. She died on May 14, 2020 at the age of 70 from complications of a blood disorder.
Alpha Delta Pi was founded as the Adelphean Society on May 15, 1851 at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia. In 1905, the sisterhood changed its name to Alpha Delta Phi and installed its second chapter at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. A third chapter was founded at Mary Baldwin Seminary, in Staunton, Virginia, in 1906.
The Delta chapter at the University of Texas was installed on June 6, 1906. It is the oldest, continuous Alpha Delta Pi chapter and it was the sixth sorority chapter on campus. Alpha chapter member Jewel Davis (Scarborough) went to the University of Texas as a graduate student with the intention of creating a chapter there. She composed the first whistle and served as National President from 1913-17. Dean Helen Marr Kirby was an Adelphean and proved herself as a valuable friend of the chapter.
During 1908-09, the Delta chapter lived in an eight-room house with a professor and his wife as chaperons and the chapter owned most of the furniture in the house. Mabelle Fuller (Sperry), who served three terms as National President from 1921-27, was an early initiate of the chapter. During 1911-12, the non-sorority women were “the cause of considerable disturbance throughout the year, finally petitioning the state legislature to put the Greek letter societies out of school. The move was unsuccessful and was voted down at a special session of the legislature,” according to the 1930 History of Alpha Delta Pi.
Mabelle Fuller Sperry
Alpha Delta Phi joined the National Panhellenic Conference in 1909. The Sigma chapter at the University of Illinois was chartered in 1912. It followed the installation of the Illinois chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, a men’s fraternity founded in 1832, whose chapters were primarily in the northeast. The women made their organization aware of this duplication of name and the problems that surfaced because of it. In 1913, the convention body voted to change the name to Alpha Delta Pi.
The Alpha Delta Pi Memorial Fountain is located in the center of Wesleyan College’s quadrangle; it was a gift to celebrate the college’s centennial in 1936. Made of Georgia marble, the Alpha Delta Pi coat-of-arms is engraved on the large slanting block at center. The names of the Alpha Delta Pi founders are engraved on the stairs leading up to the fountain. Other elements of the fountain were added on other commemorations including two lions, the mascot of Alpha Delta Pi, given in 2011 to celebrate the College’s 175th anniversary.
The first time I saw the sorority quadrangle at Northwestern University in the early 198os, I was enthralled by its vibe. I had the opportunity to work with the Pi Phi chapter at Northwestern and fell further in love with the buildings on the sorority quad. When I attended the chapter’s centennial, I met a few women who were in the chapter when the fundraising effort took place to build the chapter house. They were in their late 80s and 90s and they told stories of selling sandwiches to fraternity members to contribute to the house building fund. I’ve been intrigued ever since.
Sorority Quad 1930s
The 1930 History of Kappa Kappa Gamma (one of my absolute favorite GLO histories!) gives this account:
When President Walter Dill Scott announced in 1921 that sororities at last should be allowed to build their own houses he imposed two conditions. The houses were to be built on University property and each sorority should lease for 99 years the ground for its house. Two quadrangles were planned for the houses and sororities were allowed to choose sites in order of their age in the University. The second condition required was that each sorority raise $15,000.00 before the University broke ground for the buildings in 1925.
The early 1920s were a whirlwind of fundraising efforts for the groups at Northwestern. The $15,000 requirement is equal to nearly $217,000 in today’s funds.
Chapters and their alumnae hosted bridge parties, fashion shows, lectures, dances, movies, and rummage sales. Many sold food including cake, candy, sandwiches, etc. The Kappa Kappa Gammas had a hot dog wagon called the Kappa Kitchen. The Pi Phis sold wreaths at Christmas and put fine money towards the building fund. On December 28, 1921, the Pi Phis served at one of the Evanston restaurants. They earned 10% of the day’s proceeds which added $52 to their coffers. The Zeta Tau Alpha and Chi Omega alumnae each published a cookbook to raise funds. The Kappa Alpha Thetas magazine for Novermber 1923 included this tidbit, “We all draw extra books from the Theta book shop to put the house fund another shingle nearer the requirement.”
(Photo courtesy of Nann Blaine Hilyard)(Photo courtesy of Nann Blaine Hilyard)
On April 1, 1924, the chapters with the required 25% of the funds turned over their financial records to the university. Kappa Alpha Theta, as the first to reach the goal, had the pick of which location it desired on the quad. On June 12, 1926, a groundbreaking ceremony took place during graduation weekend.
The houses are made of Joliet limestone and have a similar appearance on the exterior. Each group had input into the design on the interior of the house. The chapters moved into the house in the fall of 1927. There were 14 chapter houses. Alpha Chi Omega, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Omicron Pi, Alpha Xi Delta, Alpha Phi, Chi Omega, Delta Gamma, Delta Delta Delta, Delta Zeta, Kappa Alpha Theta, Kappa Delta, Kappa Kappa Gamma, Gamma Phi Beta, and Pi Beta Phi celebrated their new houses. (Today, Alpha Gamma Delta, Alpha Xi Delta, and Alpha Omicron Pi are no longer at Northwestern. Zeta Tau Alpha and Evans Scholars have rotated into the sorority quad.)
The 1931 Alpha Gamma Delta history described the inside of its home:
In the basement is a carefully designed chapter room with fireplace. The living room is large and the furniture is beautiful and in exquisite taste. The dining room, furnished with refectory tables and matching chairs, opens from the living room and the two rooms can be thrown together to make a splendid arrangement for entertaining large parties. The housemother’s suite and the kitchen and butler’s pantry are also on the floor. One the second floor are bed rooms, a guest room, a utility room, and a lounge room for town girls. The third floor is entirely devoted to bedrooms. The floors throughout the house are terrazzo and the walls are of buff-colored sandstone. Steam heat and hot water are provided from a central plant by the university at cost. As a unit the chapter houses fulfill the most exacting requirements for the modern and attractive fraternity homes. Viewed as a whole the quadrangles present a picture of beauty.
The 99-year leases discussed in the early 1920s were renegotiated at some point.
Kappa Kappa Gamma as it appears today
Each house has special touches like this crest that is on the Chi Omega house. (Photo courtesy of Lyn Harris)
On a rather sad note, today is the anniversary of the Kent State University shootings which took place in the midst of anti-Vietnam War protests. On May 4, 1970, four Kent State University students, Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder, were killed by the National Guard. Nine others were injured. The Kent State campus closed for six weeks after the shootings. Protests and a national student strike led to demonstrations at other college and universities. The Kent State campus remained closed for six weeks.
Alpha Xi Delta Sandy Scheuer, an honors student studying nursing, was shot walking between classes. Jeffrey Miller was a Phi Kappa Tau. According to Phi Kappa Tau’s website, he “followed his older brother Russ Miller, Michigan State ’65, associated Alpha Alpha chapter as a legacy in 1968, and later transferred to Kent State.” May they all rest in peace.
Glyphix Studio is a Kent State student design team. It is an “award-winning, creative and collaborative classroom program that allows students within the School of Visual Communication Design the opportunity to engage in thoughtful client-based and self-guided investigation into design problems.” They did an excellent job telling us about the lives that were lost.
Phi Gamma Delta was founded on May 1, 1848. John Templeton McCarty, Samuel Beatty Wilson, James Elliott, Daniel Webster Crofts, Ellis Bailey Gregg and Naaman Fletcher – the Immortal Six – were students at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, when they founded the fraternity. The fraternity’s Beta chapter was established the same year at Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania. The chapters became one when the colleges merged to form Washington and Jefferson College in 1865.
In the summer of 1920, a Phi Gamma Delta alumnus from the Amherst College chapter won the Vice Presidential spot on the Republican ticket for the 1920 election. At the time of the nomination, Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge was at Amherst attending his 25thcollege reunion and the 99th anniversary of the college. A reception at the chapter house was arranged with his wife Grace Goodhue Coolidge, a Pi Beta Phi member, helping the chapter plan the event on short notice. More than 1,500 people – students, faculty, alumni, students and community members – attended.
Calvin Coolidge became President after the death of Warren G. Harding on August 2, 1923. The Coolidges were planning to attend Phi Gamma Delta’s 75th anniversary celebration in Pittsburgh in September 1923, but the plans had to be cancelled. Later, a founders badge was presented to the President. On that occasion, President Coolidge said, “I am very glad to have this badge. My wife wears mine most of the time.”
On November 17, 1924, the Coolidges’ oldest son, John, became a member of his father’s Phi Gamma Delta chapter at Amherst College. On the following Founders’ Day, May 1, 1925, FIJI Sires and Sons was organized. Its purpose is to “impress upon all fathers and sons, who are members of the fraternity, and in time upon their sons, a realization of the noble trinity of principles of the fraternity, with the hope that they may outrun the fervor of youth.”
The Coolidge family – Calvin, Jr., Calvin, Grace, and John shortly before Calvin, Jr.’s death. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
The idea was conceived on March 17, 1925 when T. Ludlow Chrystie and Fraternity Historian William F. Chamberlin discussed creating a list of all the fathers and sons who have been initiated into the Phi Gamma Delta. Chrystie, Chamberlin and three other men, Robert D. Williamson, Charles H. Bosler, and Abram S. Post, visited the White House. President Coolidge, Sire No. 1, signed the preamble of the organization. The men then joined the President for lunch at the White House.
Although the postcard reads “Phi Gamma Delta – Calvin Coolidge Fraternity – Amherst College, Mass.”, Calvin Coolidge never lived in this house. He helped the chapter obtain it. The chapter is no longer active.
I came across this article in the October 1952 issue of The Fraternity Month. That summer, at the Theta Phi Alpha convention at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago, Pi Lambda Sigma, another Catholic sorority, merged with Theta Phi Alpha.
Pi Lambda Sigma was founded at Boston University on June 24, 1921. Delta Delta Delta founder (Sarah) Ida Shaw Martin with support from the Chancellery Office in Boston and the approval of Boston’s Archbishop O’Connell helped create the sorority. Theta Phi Alpha’s Eta chapter was founded at Boston University in 1921 and the two Catholic sororities were rivals on the campus.
Pi Lambda Sigma’s purpose was “to stimulate the social, intellectual, ethical and spiritual life of its members; and to count as a world force through services rendered to others.” In 1927, a second chapter was established at Boston University’s School of Education. Additional chapters were chartered at Temple University, University of Illinois, University of New Hampshire, University of Cincinnati, Quincy University, and Creighton University. Pi Lambda Sigma never attained membership in the National Panhellenic Conference.
In the early 1950s, it became evident to the Pi Lambda Sigma governing council and active members that the existence of the organization was tenuous. Ruth Thompson, a Pi Lambda Sigma, is quoted in the Living Our History Centennial History of Theta Phi Alpha:
Pi Lambda Sigma was faced with several alternatives: a.) merger; b.) dissolution with assets set up in scholarship funds; and c.) each collegiate chapter would make its own decision whether to merge, go local, etc. The final vote was for the merger. I visited the Dean of Women at the University of Cincinnati and asked for advice. The administration was in favor of the merger and was helpful. We checked all NPC groups and sent questionnaires to four sororities. We received two responses besides Theta Phi’s. It took two years to finalize our merger with Theta Phi Alpha. The decision was made because the ideals of both sororities were similar and we hoped that together we would become strong.
The Pi Lambda Sigmas met in convention in May 1952 in Boston. A merger with Theta Phi Alpha was approved. When the Theta Phi Alpha convention convened in Chicago in late June the merger was ratified. There, Alison Hume Lotter, National President of Pi Lambda Sigma, was initiated into Theta Phi Alpha.
Theta Phi Alpha was founded on August 30, 1912, at the University of Michigan. In the early 1900s, Catholics were not always accepted in the other fraternal organizations. Theta Phi Alpha’s roots can be traced to the 1909 establishment of a local organization, Omega Upsilon, at the University of Michigan. Father Edward D. Kelly, a Catholic priest and the pastor of the student chapel at Michigan, felt that there should be an organization that could provide the Catholic women at Michigan with an environment that “resembled the Catholic homes from which they came.” This was in a time and place when Catholics were not always welcome in the other fraternal organizations on campus. Interestingly, Theta Phi Alpha birthplace was a state institution that was co-founded by a Catholic priest, Father Gabriel Richard.
At the time of the merger only four of Pi Lambda Sigma’s chapters were active. The chapters at Boston University and the University of Cincinnati combined under Theta Phi Alpha’s letters. The chapter at Creighton University became the Chi Chapter of Theta Phi Alpha in the fall of 1952 and the Quincy College chapter became the Psi Chapter of Theta Phi Alpha in 1954.
Today, just as other organizations have accepted Catholic women, Theta Phi Alpha is open to women of all religions.
As a new member at the Pi Phi chapter at Syracuse University decades ago, I had no idea where Monmouth, Illinois was, nor could I have picked Illinois off a map. I knew that Pi Beta Phi was founded on April 28, 1867 at Monmouth, College. And that it was founded by 12 young women.
Pi Beta Phi was founded at Holt House in Monmouth, Illinois
Did I have any idea that being a woman in college in 1867 was a very big deal? Probably not. Did I realize the obstacles they faced? Again, probably not. Did I appreciate the efforts put forth by generations of young women who took Pi Phis ideals as their own? And yet again, probably not.
I knew very little about the organization. I might have memorized facts, but I did not understand the depth of its history. The only thing I knew about it was what was in front of me in my chapter.
As a new member, I did not know that the Alpha chapter was forced to close by a college edict. (Monmouth Duo partner Kappa Kappa Gamma, founded in 1870, faced the same challenge.) That Pi Phi had made it to its centennial and beyond was amazing, but that fact was lost on me. At a time when the Alpha chapter of any GLO was its most vital, this loss could have caused the organization to disappear. However, because the founders made extension a priority, we are here today. I had no idea of the effort it took to go beyond the Monmouth campus.
Imagine a young Libbie Brook. She convinced her parents to let her attend Iowa Wesleyan University in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, for a year. Story has it she told them that due to an eye condition she needed to focus on her studies. What better way to do this than attend an institution where she knew no one, she explained to them. By the end of 1868, she had established a second chapter and a third one quickly followed. The members of those early chapters, college students themselves, took charge of the organization when the Alpha chapter was unable to function. The organization’s existence was challenged and these women, who had scant rights and little precedence to follow, took charge and kept the organization afloat.
A few weeks ago, during a zoom session with a chapter, we discussed how vastly different life was for women in 1867. Less than one percent of women their age were in any form of higher education at that time. Almost everything they take for granted – indoor plumbing, electricity, telephones, automobiles, was an idea in someone’s mind. When I said that I think the scents of 1867 would drive me batty, they laughed.
And yet, Pi Phis today are connected to those early women whose lives were so different. We are all tiny little links on one long chain. From those first links, to the ones that connect us, to the ones who will come in front of us, we are a part of something so much bigger than what we see on our own campus.
My heart breaks for the members of all of our chapters who left for spring break and have not returned to tell of their adventures. The ones who would soon become initiated members. The ones who would be celebrating alumnae status upon graduation. So much has been halted like a game where when the music stops, one freezes in place. But staying connected is easier that it has ever been. And for that I am grateful.
Challenges can make us anxious and frightened. But they can also cause us to look beyond ourselves. What would May Lansfield Keller, a woman who in the late 1890s traveled to Germany to earn a Ph.D., say to the collegians whose spring semester has been disrupted?What would Carrie Chapman Catt, who devoted her life to the cause of women’s suffrage, say? Or what would Grace Goodhue Coolidge, whose trials included the loss of her youngest son during her years as First Lady, say?
We will survive this and we will learn and grow from it. That is what we do and what we have done since those early days when our existence was first threatened by the Monmouth College authorities. I suspect that at future Founders’ Day celebrations, some alumnae will regale collegians with stories about chapter life during the Pandemic of 2020. We’ve been through 153 years and we have stories to tell and we will continue in that tradition.
My apologies for not highlighting a Pi Phi alumna or event, as I usually do for other groups, but there are many posts to be found by searching or going to the right side bar. Happy Founders’ Day, Pi Beta Phi sisters!
Although they appear red, these really are wine carnations, in a wonderful bowl nade by a student in the SIUC glassblowing program.
Victrola parties sound so quaint, don’t they? But 100 years they were a very big deal. The victrola gave the owner(s) the option of playing music that had been pre-recorded. Heretofore, anyone wanting music at an event needed someone to play on instruments such as a piano or violin.
The Lambda Chi Alpha chapter at Cornell University told of a victrola’s purchase in a 1914 magazine. “We find it a source of much pleasure. Many classic records have been added and the music committee are to be commended for their selections.” The victrola was financed with a 25-cents per member tax, according to October 4, 1914 chapter meeting minutes.
Michigan Daily ads, 1914
In 1917, Beta Theta Pi encouraged its chapters to have a Music Night as part of the chapter’s educational programming. “The victrola may be used for the study of good music, the Victor Company publishes a book on this line.”
In the 1920s, the emergence of radio stations made a combination radio and victrola a welcomed addition to chapter life. Evening radio programming often included musical performances, so a chapter could schedule a dance based on a local station’s schedule.
The report of the Syracuse University Alpha Omicron Pi chapter told of a situation at the institution in the early 1920s:
The dean refuses to give any permission or to register any dances until Chancellor Day decides whether we may have any private dances at all or only all-university dances in the gymnasium. Some of the other fraternities have had dances, and nearly all are giving victrola dances, so we fell the authorities cannot object to these.
The emergence of radio stations in the 1920s made a combination radio and victrola a welcomed addition to chapter life. Evening radio programming often included musical performances, so a chapter could schedule a dance based on these performances.
In 1924, the Zeta Tau Alpha women at the University of Washington had a victrola in the chapter’s music room. They also helped fund raise with a rummage sale which included victrola records the members did not want. The Ohio State Zetas sold candy to raise funds to purchase a chapter victrola.
When the Depression hit the University of Illinois campus, the Phi Kappa Psi chapter had a plan. The April 1934 issue of the chapter newsletter noted that:
a valuable and most useful addition to the chapter furnishings has been the purchase of a new combination of radio and Victrola. The need for this splendid instrument was felt to be more pressing than that of holding the annual spring formal this year, and the purchase was financed by using the money ordinarily spent for the annual spring dance.
In the late 1930s, the Mothers’ Club of the University of Illinois Sigma Nu’s chapter presented the chapter with a radio-victrola. The radio “proved its worth when the chapter used it for our radiodance” after the start of the second semester.
Sigma Sigma Sigma was founded on April 20, 1898, at the State Female Normal School in Farmville, Virginia. Today the institution is Longwood University. Tri Sigma’s founders are Lucy Wright, Margaret Batten, Elizabeth Watkins, Louise Davis, Martha Trent Featherston, Lelia Scott, Isabella Merrick, and Sallie Michie.
Tri Sigma was a member of the Association of Education Sororities (AES). It became a member of the National Panhellenic Conference along with the other AES groups after World War II.
From its beginnings, the violet has been Tri Sigma’s flower. This poem appeared in an early Triangle.
“The violet has always been and we hope shall always be the flower of Sigma Sigma Sigma,” according to the Years Remembered of Sigma Sigma Sigma. Violet tributes can be purchased from the Tri Sigma Foundation and are a wonderful way to honor Tri Sigma friends.
On April 17, 1893, Alpha Xi Delta was founded at Lombard College in Galesburg, Illinois. The founders ranged in age from 15-year old Alice Barlett Bruner to a 25-year-old widow, Eliza Curtis. For nine years Alpha Xi remained a local organization on the Lombard campus.
P.E.O. was founded as a collegiate organization at Iowa Wesleyan University on January 21, 1869. Between 1869 and 1902, the P.E.O. members who had been initiated while enrolled at Iowa Wesleyan University stayed active in the college chapter even though they were no longer enrolled in the college. Many remained in or near Mount Pleasant. Others formed chapters in towns and communities where they moved after graduation. The early P.E.O. chapters that had been formed at nearby schools did not survive and P.E.O.’s growth was in community chapters. The chapter at Iowa Wesleyan University was finding it difficult to operate on a college campus with the rules put forth by the community chapters.
The P.E.O. Chapter at Iowa Wesleyan University took became Chapter AJ to distinguish itself from the Mount Pleasant community chapter, which today is known as Original A. When state chapters were established and chapters were renamed it became Chapter S/Iowa. After the turn of the century, the governing body of P.E.O. made the decision to withdraw the charter of Chapter S. The college women wished to remain a collegiate organization and discussed becoming a chapter of a Greek-letter organization.
The Alpha Xi Delta Chapter at Lombard, having made the decision to become a national organization, and the collegiate members of P.E.O., having decided to become a chapter of a Greek-letter organization, discussed the decisions that needed to be made on both sides if there was to be a resolution to these wishes. Anna Gillis (Kimble), a member of the Alpha Xi Delta chapter at Lombard College, hailed from Mount Pleasant. Her influence helped the Iowa Wesleyan women make the decision to become the Beta chapter of Alpha Xi Delta.
On June 9, 1902, the Alpha Xi Delta members entered the Lombard College Chapel wearing their tri-colored ribbons for the first time. The ribbons heralded the fact that they were now a national organization. After chapel, the installing officers made their way to Mount Pleasant.
The installation of Alpha Xi Delta’s second chapter took place at the home of Ellen Ball. Cora Bollinger Block presided at the installation.
The Beta Chapter of Alpha Xi Delta, 1904
The chapter roll quickly grew. By 1905, when the Beta Chapter hosted the Third National Convention, there were nine chapters. In addition to the chapters at Lombard and Iowa Wesleyan, chapters had been chartered at Mount Union College, Bethany College, University of South Dakota, Wittenberg University, Syracuse University, University of Wisconsin and West Virginia University. The only P.E.O. founder to be continuously involved with P.E.O. was Alice Bird Babb. Her daughter Alice Babb Ewing was a member of the Beta chapter of Alpha Xi Delta and a P.E.O.
The Mount Pleasant, Iowa, Alumnae Chapter had a breakfast each year a hotel. On June 4, 1924, P.E.O. founder Alice Bird Babb was their guest and she spoke at the event. Babb mentioned she had always wanted to be an Alpha Xi Delta, but she “never expected to be here while college was in session.”
Mount Pleasant alumna Ruth Willits wrote a report of this event for The Quill. It appears as if the initiation had not been planned in advance:
The idea was an inspiration to us and it grew so fast that by six o’clock that evening we had seen an initiation ceremony given in the historic room in Main Hall – that room so interesting to P.E.O. – the room in which our initiate had helped found P.E.O. in 1869. I’m sure I never saw the ceremony performed more beautifully. Something seemed to tell all of us that we were renewing our vows to Alpha Xi Delta.
This spur of the moment initiation might be why she was initiated with Bess Randle Van Brussel’s badge. Babb was 74 years old when she became an Alpha Xi. She died in 1926.
Lombard College was founded in 1853 by the Universalist Church and it was coeducational from its beginning. Originally called the Illinois Liberal Institute, its name was changed in 1855, after a fire damaged much of the college. Businessman and farmer Benjamin Lombard gave the college a large gift to build a new building and the institution was named in his honor. Among its students was Carl Sandburg. The 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression hit Lombard College extremely hard and the college closed its doors. The last class graduated in 1930. Knox College invited the Lombard students to transfer to Knox, with the same tuition cost as Lombard, and without loss of academic standing. Knox also incorporated the Lombard alumni into the Knox Alumni Association.
There are many posts on this blog. Use the search button to find the posts about your organization.
Welcome!
Welcome! Chances are good you found this blog by searching for something about fraternities or sororities.
I was the last person anyone would have suspected of joining a sorority in college. I am sure I would have agreed with them, too.
When I made my way to Syracuse University, I saw the houses with the Greek letters that edged Walnut Park, and wished I could tour them. My roommate suggested I sign up for rush (as it was then called, today it’s known as recruitment) and go through the house tour round and then drop out of rush. It sounded like a plan. I didn’t realize that I would end up feeling at home at one of the chapters. And that I would become a member.
In this blog I will share the history of GLOs and other topics. I wrote a dissertation on “Coeducation and the History of Women’s Fraternities 1867-1902.″ It chronicles the growth of the system and the birth of the National Panhellenic Conference.
My Master’s thesis details the history of the fraternity system at Southern Illinois University Carbondale from 1948-1960. The dates are significant ones and the thesis is available on the top menu.
I have done research at the Student Life Archives and have written several histories of University of Illinois fraternity chapters for the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing.
