Zeta Psi

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Zeta Psi - ΖΨ
Image:ZetaPsiEscutcheon2.gif
Founded June 1, 1847 (1847-06-01) (age 160)
New York University
Type Social
Scope International
Motto ΤΚΦ (Tau Kappa Phi)
Colors White
Flower White Carnation
Publication The Circle
Philanthropy ZeteKidz
Chapters 52
Nickname Zetes (“zates”)
Headquarters 15 South Henry St
Pearl River, New York, USA
Homepage http://www.zetapsi.org

The Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America was founded June 1st, 1847 as a social college fraternity. The organization now comprises about fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly twenty thousand brothers, and is a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference. It has historically been selective about the campuses at which it establishes chapters, focusing on forging new territory and maintaining a presence at prestigious institutions: it was the first fraternity on the West Coast at the University of California at Berkeley June 10th, 1870, the first fraternity in Canada at the University of Toronto, March 27th, 1879, and the only fraternity to have chapters simultaneously at all eight Ivy League schools with the chartering of Eta at Yale University in 1889 (though the last claim lasted only a few years, owing to burgeoning faculty opposition to the Princeton chapter).

The Greek letters of the fraternity are the capital letters Zeta and Psi: ΖΨ.

It's considered by many scholars to be one of the most secretive fraternities.

Its international headquarters is located in Pearl River, New York. Its current Phi Alpha, or president, is Greg McElroy, as of 2006.

Contents

On the first of June in 1847, three intrepid men gathered in a New York City home with grand purpose in mind: the constitution of a new Greek-letter society. Their names were John Bradt Yates Sommers, William Henry Dayton, and John Moon Skillman; the fraternity they founded that day was Zeta Psi.

Then students at New York University (itself a young campus, having only been founded in 1831), the three men formed the core of the first chapter, Phi. But William Dayton was stricken with poor health, and departed New York shortly afterwards for more temperate climes. He retired to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where the warm weather was expected to improve his humors, intending to begin a chapter there. But the move was inauspicious: Dayton died within the year, and the University of North Carolina was without a chapter of Zeta Psi for over a decade.

The Phi chapter at NYU persisted in his absence, and graduated its first member the next year with George S Woodhull (Φ '48). The second chapter was established as Zeta at Williams College in Massachusetts, but it was active only four years because of faculty suppression. The Delta chapter was founded at Rutgers University later that year, and remains the most longevitous continuously active chapter of the fraternity (the Phi chapter was briefly inactive in the 1970s).

Three chapters followed in 1850: Omicron Epsilon at Princeton University, Sigma at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chi at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. The first two are still active, as was the Chi Chapter until 1988. But in the early 1980s, Colby College prohibited fraternities on campus, despite the long and storied tradition they had enjoyed there. By 1988, ejected from campus and banned from any formal rush, the chapter quietly expired after over 130 years of existence. Problems beset other early chapters as well. The first Alpha chapter was founded in 1852 at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But immediate resistance from the administration slowly wore upon the brothers there, and that chapter became inactive in 1872, permitting its letter to be used for the later chapter founded at Columbia.

But expansion proceeded apace throughout the 1850s at a rate of several chapters per year: Epsilon was chartered at Brown University and Rho Epsilon at Harvard University in 1852; Psi Epsilon at Dartmouth College in 1853; Kappa at Tufts University in 1855; Theta at Union College in 1856; Tau at Lafayette College in 1857; Xi at University of Michigan in 1858. Also in 1858, the Upsilon chapter was finally founded at the University of Northern Carolina, fulfilling the purpose of Brother Dayton in his last journey south. And in that year an abortive attempt was made to colonize Amherst College with the Pi chapter, which was rechartered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1860 as the war among the several states loomed large.

But those chapters were the last before the conflict brewing for nearly a century was unleashed finally. Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860, and South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed shortly thereafter by her fellow Southern states. Expansion of the fraternity halted as campuses rallied for war and sent companies of their collegemen to battle. Zeta Psi too contributed her men, and many did not return.

At the outbreak of war, the Upsilon chapter at UNC—itself only chartered three years before--found itself the only chapter of Zeta Psi among all the Southern states, sundered from the North by the sudden lines of enmity. But even as they mustered for war and marched south, the Grand Chapter of Zeta Psi, specially assembled in early July 1862, adopted the resolution of Brother William Cooke (Φ '58) prescribing unity:

RESOLVED, That while we may differ in political sentiment with those of our Brothers who are courageously battling for principles which they deem right, no disaster shall separate them from the union of Tau Kappa Phi.

And the brothers of Upsilon replied by letter in like fashion:

WHEREAS, The present distracted state of our country renders it inexpedient to hold our convention in this State during this year;
RESOLVED, That the Sigma Alpha be instructed to write to all Chapters, assuring them that though our Federal Union has been dissolved, still the Circle of Zeta Psi Fraternity shall never be broken;
RESOLVED, That the bonds of Tau Kappa Phi which bind us to our Brothers in the North are as strong as they ever were.

Nor was the brotherhood among Zetes limited to mere words; the moving tale of Brother Henry Schwerin (Θ '63) illustrates the embodiment of love even in the most trying of circumstance. Schwerin lay gravely wounded after the bloody Battle of Chattanooga; pinned on the breast of his Union uniform was the badge of Zeta Psi. A passing Confederate soldier, also a Zete, spied the badge and carried the invalid to medical care and safety, ignoring even the imperatives of war for the sake of his brother. The worthy badge later passed into the hands of his brother, Max Schwerin (Θ '70), who would one day serve as international president. After his death, it was donated by his sister to the fraternity's archives and remains among its treasures. Brother John Day Smith (Ε '72) witnessed the incident on the Chattanooga field, and later related it to Brother Francis Lawton (Ε '69), who would author the poem “The Badge of Zeta Psi,” later set to original music and preserved to this day. The reference to “Chattanooga's bloody field” is not idle hyperbole, but the recollection of a rare triumph among such sorrows.

And amid these sorrows and heroisms, when so many brothers of Zeta Psi perished, so too were even whole chapters swallowed by the War. The Eta (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, chartered 1861), Psi Epsilon (Dartmouth), Upsilon (UNC), Epsilon (Brown), and Theta (Union) chapters had vanished by the end of battle, decimated by fallen brothers or disheartened campuses returning from the shadow of death. The Theta and Eta chapters would never survive the staggering losses they suffered, though the others ultimately recovered and reactivated. And the Gamma chapter—chartered 1861 at the Georgia Military Institute, the only new chapter during the War—was annihilated utterly by General Sherman's march, and existed thus only for those few years of tumult. But out of the shadow of war came regrowth and a time for Zeta Psi to expand once more.

The nation was still young indeed even after the end of the Civil War: California had only recently become a State, committing to the side of the victorious Union and contributing its men though the conflict took place mainly across the continent, thousands of miles away. It was then only fitting that to California the fraternities should next have moved. And as in many initiatives, Zeta Psi was first: in 1870 it established the Iota chapter at the University of California, Berkeley and became the first fraternity on the West Coast. (Though the Iota chapter would not be joined until 1892 by the next addition, the Mu chapter at Stanford University.)

Nor was Zeta Psi content even to remain a national fraternity, but also pressed northward into Canada. The brothers of the Xi chapter at the University of Michigan in 1879 constituted the Theta Xi chapter at the University of Toronto, making Zeta Psi the first international fraternity as well. Since then, Zeta Psi has actively bolstered its Canadian presence, commissioning a director solely for Canadian chapter development and amassing a long list of successful chapters there.

The end of the nineteenth century was fecund ground for Zeta Psi. It took root at no fewer than fourteen colleges in those latter days: Omega was founded at University of Chicago in 1864; Pi at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1865; Lambda, Bowdoin College, 1867; Beta, University of Virginia, 1868; Psi, Cornell University, 1868; Iota, UC Berkeley, 1870; Gamma, first at the US Naval Academy in 1874, and then at Syracuse College in 1875 after the government proscribed fraternities at its military academies; Theta Xi, University of Toronto, 1879; Alpha, Columbia University, 1879; Alpha Psi, McGill University, 1883; Nu, Case Western Reserve, 1884; Eta, Yale, 1889; Mu, Stanford, 1892; Alpha Beta, University of Minnesota, 1899. (The establishment of the Eta chapter at Yale made Zeta Psi the first and only fraternity to establish chapters at all eight Ivy-League schools.)

Even as the physical reach of Zeta Psi made great bounds, so too did the principles underlying its brotherhood. By the turn of the century, the need for some more centralized structure pressed as chapter after chapter was added to the Circle and their correspondence became too much to handle so chaotically. In 1909, an international publication concerning the affairs of Zetes was first published by Brother William Comstock (Ξ '99) and distributed among the several chapters: The Circle of Zeta Psi. The periodical, which is still published to this day, contained in that first issue the exhortation which has come to be known as ”The Vision of Bill Comstock” for its prescience and wisdom:

We feel that the Fraternity, now that its individual chapters and memberships have grown so strong, is wasting its greatest possibility of strength and growth through the lack of a systematic central organization.

In short, Brother Comstock criticized the degree of individualism among the chapters of Zeta Psi, demanding unity among such disparate brothers. He prescribed that every member should receive the fledgling Circle of Zeta Psi, and thus be apprised of the far-flung doings of the fraternity; that a general secretary be commissioned to travel among the chapters and treat with them; and that a foundation be established for the pecuniary support of the general fraternity. And all three of his mandates have been amply fulfilled: The Circle is still published and distributed to the brothers of Zeta Psi (and can be read online here); now the General Secretary is assisted in his rounds by chapter consultants, whose function remains the same; and the Zeta Psi Educational Foundation was to be instituted within Brother Comstock's lifetime, though still in the future. Before Zeta Psi could turn to such collegiate concerns, war again threatened, this time abroad.

Though already inured to the horrors and trial that War would wreak upon her from the bloody Civil War, war in Europe came suddenly in the 1910s and caught a nation and fraternity unawares. For some time, the United States did not commit troops to the battle, maintaining an isolationist stance protected. But Canada was a member in good standing of Britain's Commonwealth, and as war threatened England, the men of Canada were called upon to support their ally abroad.

With the first Canadian chapter only founded at Toronto in 1879, her sister chapters were still young when war came to them. Particularly stricken were the Alpha Psi and Theta Xi chapters at McGill and U Toronto. Even in 1914, they were already sending letters indicating their brothers heading east across the sea to the war. In 1915, more than half the workers at the McGill Base Hospital were Zetes from Alpha Psi. By war's end, the two beleaguered chapters had given over two hundred souls in defense of King and Country.

Perhaps most noted among the rolls of the brave Canadian brethren who went overseas is Lt. Col. Brother Dr. John McCrae (Θ Ξ '94), a serviceman in the Canadian army, who like so many other men did not return at the close of conflict. But Brother McCrae bequeathed to his fraternity more than even his worthy life, but also a poem which has been preserved in great honor as both a historical and literary work: “In Flanders Fields.” The words are a testament to the heroic spirit in man and are treasured still by the brethren of Zeta Psi as the hallowed words of a brother whose time long ago passed.

Finally in 1917, America entered the war, and with their country, so too did the many Zetes who called that land their home. At the annual convention of Zeta Psi, the brothers adopted a resolution in support of the war—which the United States Congress had itself only declared a few weeks previously—:

WHEREAS, The United States of America has been forced into the World War in defense of its national honor and for the protection of international justice and democracy;
BE IT RESOLVED, That the Zeta Psi Fraternity of North America, at the Seventieth Annual Convention assembled at Raleigh, North Carolina, hereby pledges to the President and Congress of the United States of America its unqualified support of whatever war measures the Government may deem necessary and expedient, and places at the disposal of the Government its national organization, its Chapters, and its individual members, for service in whatever capacities the government may direct.

Nor was the pledge mere idle words nor fatuous boasting. Over one quarter of all brethren of Zeta Psi would serve during the First World War in foreign lands, and many did not return. Zeta Psi also provided the nation its first Assistant Secretary of War, Brother Benedict Crowell (Ν '92), noted for his bold reorganization of civilian military control during World War I. Even after the war, Crowell remained politically powerful, and was later instrumental in engineering the repeal of National Prohibition. When battle and country called, the men of Zeta Psi answered.

The post-war years were marred by the calamity of the Great Depression in the United States, and Zeta Psi suffered with her countries. The ranks of brothers at campuses across America and Canada had been decimated by war, and chapters had struggled to survive. Yet they had persevered—not one chapter went inactive in those years. But expansion was slow, as the chapters rebuilt their strength after the toll. By 1930, the nation had fallen into deep economic trouble, and students struggled to attend college, let alone accede to a brotherhood demanding of time and energy. Not only was the collegiate population averse to expansion; but in the meager times, campuses were reticent to open their doors and resources to new fraternities. Only two new American chapters were chartered during this period, Phi Lambda at the University of Washington in 1920, and Sigma Zeta at UCLA in 1924. By 1930, no more chapters would be chartered until after the Pyrrhic economic boom occasioned by World War II that Zeta Psi would reach many of its present chapters.

Yet these decades were not without moments of profound joy among Zetes. Zeta Psi celebrated its diamond jubilee (the seventy-fifth anniversary of its foundation) in 1922, with festivities in its birthtown of New York. Auspiciously, it happened that both the Grand Army of the Republic (the famed organization of Union veterans; their modern web presence can be found here) and the United Confederate Veterans had elected brothers of Zeta Psi as their commanders-in-chief for that year. Thus at a dinner held for Zetes in New York that year, the two men--Brothers Lewis Stephen Pilcher, GAR, and Julian Shakespeare Carr (Υ '68), UCV—shook hands and broke bread as brothers, rather than the leaders of two organizations still as militantly opposed as forty years before. Brother Henry Thomas, the evening's toastmaster, remarked, “If the North and South had only placed the controversy in the hands of Zeta Psi, there would have been no war. At last the mistake has been realized, and now we see our two Brothers, each in command of his old army.” Julian Carr had served in the Third North Carolina Cavalry and witnessed the Confederacy's surrender at Appomattox, and though he never achieved high officership in the Confederate Army, he was granted the honorary title of Major General by the UCV and was commonly called the “General” by friends. He was major philanthropist of educational and industrial concerns, founder of the eponymous Carrtown near Chapel Hill, and a great benefactor of the South.

And while expansion in America had stalled, Zeta Psi's presence in Canada grew dramatically. The Pi Epsilon chapter was chartered at University of Manitoba in 1921, Sigma Epsilon at the University of British Columbia in 1926, Mu Theta at the University of Alberta in 1930, Alpha Mu at Dalhousie in 1938, and the Theta Phi chapter would be founded at the University of Western Ontario in 1947. This rapid growth only furthered Zeta Psi’s pioneering spirit in the north, as each of the new chapters was the first at its respective institution. The Canadian Foundation would be convened in 1939 to bring together the burgeoning Zeta Psi presence in Canada, and provide guidance and direction through scholarships, congress, and assistance for continuing northern expansion. With the war over, the legions of brothers abroad returning, and the institutional presence of Zeta Psi on firm foundation, Zeta Psi looked to the post-war period with optimisim.

At first, the college population surged back into fraternal life, eager to reëmbrace university life to its fullest. Zeta Psi spent the perponderance of its energies assisting chapters greivously dirupted in direction and number by the departure of their brothers for the war to return to their normal fraternal function and academic commitments— a hefty task given the scope and breadth of the war’s upheaval. Broader expansion was placed on a back burner: through the 1950’s, only minor spread was endeavored with the chartering of Omega at Northwestern and Theta Phi at the University of Western Ontario in 1947,1 Rho at Middlebury in 1956, and Omicron at Nebraska Wesleyan in 1958.2 Additionally, the return of veterans to Rensselaer eager to enter fraternity life induced IHQ to reactivate the Pi chapter, which had lain dormant since 1894.

The landscape for fraternities had surely changed by the time the Second World War had wound down: society was moving towards meritocratic admissions to colleges, distancing themselves rapidly from the elitist and nepotist institutions of years past, encumbered with prolix and arcane stipulations. The new colleges were refashioning themselves as the new temples of academe, with a dispassionate focus on research.3 Though fraternities were not keen to discard their time-honored ritual and tradition, they realized that the face of fraternity need perforce change to match a changing student population, even while preserving their legacies all the more zealously. In order to faciliate this change, the Grand Chapter of Zeta Psi resolved on its centennial in 1947 to drastically overhaul its increasingly pleonastic constitution.4 This resolution was given force three years later when a new document was agreed upon by the various chapters in 1950, which text has served as Zeta Psi’s guiding force to the present day.

Yet all was not to remain so halcyon as the decade after the war, when quietude from sea to sea and complacence on campuses greatly assisted Zeta Psi in reëstablishing its illustrious presence. In the early 1960’s, the administration of Williams College decided after much-derided deliberation to outlaw unilaterally all fraternal organizations from its campus.5 Zeta Psi, among others, attempted to maintain their house and presence, but in the end the college’s obduracy proved too strong, and the lauded chapter—the fraternity’s second-oldest—was forced to leave campus, though it struggled on for another few decades in exile.6 This was not to be an isolated incident.7 The counterculture experimentation of the 1960’s and 1970’s did not reserve its wrath for overt organs of government; any long-standing institution was viewed with suspicion, and those which had always practice self-selection in membership were quickly heaped with opprobrium by students naïvely seeking some kind of elimination of meritocratic classes in favor of anarchalism or communism. Particularly, many fraternities still contained restrictive clauses which were anathema to the freer society which was forming.8 Zeta Psi, seeking to be the fraternity of the intellectual elite, had never relied on such instruments in garnering its membership, preferring to focus exlusively on merit. But the greek system had always weathered the waxing and waning of popular support together, and now the student body’s support was waning indeed.

Ironically, it was just as popular sentiment was turning against fraternities that Zeta Psi embarked on its longest and most concerted campaign of expansion since its early days after foundation. Moreover, while that first drive focused mostly on New England, Zeta Psi by the 1960’s was already firmly established in its native grounds. Its new sights were set much farther abroad: it had been the first on the Pacific and in Canada, but its chapters remained few and far between beyond the northeast.9 Now seemed the time to change this, to set a bulkwark against a tide of anti-Greek intolerance in a new range of schools. As time had progressed, the position of executive director of the fraternity had become ever more important in spearheading expansion. With the appointment in 1972 of Br Gregory E McElroy (Φ 1970) to the position, this process moved into overdrive under his expert and vigorous direction.10 The 1960’s and 1970’s proved uncommonly successful: Theta was chartered at the University of Connecticut and Pi Sigma at Penn State in 1960; Omicron Sigma at Oregon State in 1962; Chi Gamma at Calgary in 1967; Tau Gamma at Purdue in 1968; Delta Chi at American in 1969; Pi Kappa at Bloomsburg in 1969; Sigma Phi at the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1970; Tau Delta at Lehigh in 1973; Upsilon Mu at the University of Massachusetts, 1975; Alpha Pi at Virginia Tech in 1975; Pi Tau at Worcester Polytechnic in 1976; Phi Epsilon at the University of Maryland in 1976; Beta Tau at Tulane in 1977; Iota Alpha at the University of Texas in 1979; Rho Alpha at MIT in 1979; and Psi Zeta at Ohio State in 1979.

Moreover, this rapid expansion—seventeen new chapters in two decades, just under a new chapter every year—was not accomplished at the expense of weaker institutional values in the new chapters. Among the highest priorites was to affirm the role of the new chapters in the circle of Zeta Psi in the broader Zete community. This was reflected by the strong perseverence of the new inductees; only four of them would perish before the turn of the millennium. And the dream of expanding the geographic embrace to new areas had been realized as well: over half of the new chapters were outside the traditional New England stomping ground of the fraternity’s youth. Some of these new chapters were far afield indeed: the Beta Tau at Tulane was the first chapter chartered in the Deep South (excluding the first Gamma at Georgia Military Institute, which was active only a few months during the Civil War), and joined only a few other chapters (viz Upsilon, Beta, and Alpha Pi two years earlier) in the South at all; though it would be followed only two years later by the Iota Alpha in Texas, the first of several overtures into that state.

But of course as these great strides were taken towards bringing Zeta Psi into the second half of the millennium, some were inevitably left behind. The new antiestablishment values on many of the more rabidly obstructive campuses had pushed some chapters into terminal decline. During the 1970’s, the Zeta, Omicron Sigma, and Delta Chi would expire, while such illustrious chapters as the Alpha Psi, Eta and Xi would lapse and lose their historical residence, some of which had been held for a century. And in a double blow to the fraternity’s natal city, the palatial Zeta Psi Club was sold in favor of an upstate location, and the Mother Chapter, the Phi lapsed into brief inactivity in the face of an overantagonistic student body at the always liberally leaning NYU. Yet the international fraternity had suffered through the protests of an often-hostile college world with èlan and comity, and emerged the stronger for it.

Unexpectedly, perhaps the most prominent development in greek life of the 1980’s emerged in 1978, with National Lampoon’s release of the unheralded Animal House, ostensibly set in 1962. The film, made with a cast of unknown actors on a scant three million dollar budget, would define much of society’s perception of fraternity life for years, if not decades, to come. To this day, many national fraternities feel the necessity of noting that they do not espouse the “Animal House style” vision of college life. The slapstick world of the (fictional) Deltas at the (fictional) Haber College was based on the very real experience of the main screenwriter as a Alpha Delta Phi at Dartmouth College, and there were indeed many chapters among the various fraternities for whom the movie represented only an exaggeration. With the decline of the libertine values of the 1960’s and 1970’s in favor of the more individualistic and patriotic fervor of the Reagan-Thatcher 1980’s, greeks once again found themselves a step behind society and the subject of scorn by colleges who viewed them as deleterious to academics. Where colleges had once barred fraternities as elitist and a potential threat to faculty authority, now they moved decisively to curb fraternities as corroding commitment to academics and promoting now-outmoded debauchery, particularly at prestigious institutions which viewed them as potential threats to their reputation.

Over the course of the 1980’s and 1990’s, the Epsilon, Rho Epsilon, Alpha Mu, Mu, Sigma Zeta, Sigma, Mu Theta, Omega, Pi Kappa, and Psi Zeta chapters would lapse, and only the Alpha Mu would be revived expeditiously. Such a dramatic diminution of chapters had not occurred since the Civil War, when entire colleges were emptied for the sake of combat. Nor were these losses each an isolated phenonomenon. In the early 1990’s, a cabal of small New England colleges conspired to oust greek life entirely from campus, not on grounds of libertinism but because fraternities enjoyed so great a degree of power on campus as to threaten the administration’s desire to promote its own vision of campus life—following the archetype of similarly-situated Williams College successful ban on greek life in the 1960’s. Ironically, greek life enjoyed this position because it was at these small New England colleges that fraternities had first appeared and long prospered. That the end of the twentieth century found colleges seeking rabidly to extirpate the centuries-old institutions which had long been their helpmates through the decades seems at best ungrateful and at worst perfidious. Nonetheless, most prevailed in short order: the Zeta at Williams had struggled on after ejection from campus and only now expired in 1991, inauspiciously in the same year as Chi at Colby; the Rho at Middlebury would be lost in 1992, and finally the Lambda at Bowdoin in 1994. The Zeta and Chi were the second and fifth earliest chapters in the international fraternity, and their loss was a particularly tragic rejection of storied history. [Bowdoin’s trustees decision to abolish the greek system and decision to expel any students joining a so-called “underground fraternity”, see pt 1 for Colby’s campaign, and Deke’s pioneering Restore Our Educational Rights which, notes the Chronicle of Higher Education, succeeded in having inserted into the Higher Education Act of 1998 a nonbinding “Sense of Congress” that colleges should allow students to freely associate, specifically with fraternal organizations. As to Middlebury, see the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Review noting that the board of trustees had declared greek life “antithetical to the mission of the college” and “an anachronism” and proscribed first any unisexual and then any greek organization.]

Yet during this same period, Zeta Psi forged onwards in its long-standing mission to forge new ground and maintain its presence at elite institutions. The dawning of the 1980’s saw the reactivation of the long-dormant Alpha chapter at Columbia in 1981 and Omicron Epsilon at Princeton in 1982. In the late 1980’s, Zeta Psi nearly regained its unique status as the only fraternity ever to have concurrent chapters at all eight Ivy League schools. (It had last enjoyed this privilege for only four years from 1889 with the chartering of Eta at Yale to the lapse of Omicron Epsilon at Princeton in 1893.) From 1982 to 1986, it had chapters at every Ivy but Yale; but before Eta’s reactivation at Yale in 1990, the Epsilon chapter at Brown had been expelled (in 1986) from the fraternity for admitting women as full brothers. (The chapter reformed as Zeta Delta Xi, an unaffiliated local fraternity.)[1] That errant chapter’s faithlessness denied the fraternity this honor richly deserved by three other Ivies’ reactivation.

But Br McElroy, who had seen the fraternity so adeptly through the faculty opposition of the 1970’s, was still firmly at the helm, ensuring the continuing health of the international brotherhood. The Lambda Psi and Alpha Mu chapters would both be reactivated in 1997 and their houses regained short years after their lapses, preserving the rich tradition of Zetes at Wisconin and Dalhousie; and the drive to expand to distant and unique schools continued apace. Though the chartering of Delta Alpha at the University of Colorada at Boulder in 1990 was short-lived, Zeta Psi persevered with Iota Delta at UC Davis in 1981; Tau Alpha, Texas A&M, 1992; and Psi Kappa, USC, 1996. Zeta Psi also brought its brotherhood to new and illustrious realms of academia: to specialized arts and engineering cooperatives with Kappa Phi at Cooper Union in 1984 and Alpha Nu at the Claremont Colleges in 1991; to Catholic institutions with Alpha Omega at Villanova in 1984 and Nu Sigma at Seton Hall in 2003. And of course the ancestrally northwestern brotherhood did not neglect continued expansion in its home territory, chartering the Theta Tau chapter at Vermont in 1994, Nu Delta at Marist in 2001, and Tau Theta at the Ontario Institute of Technology in 2005.

Br McElroy would be the longest-serving Executive Director in the fraternity’s history, serving almost a quarter of a century until stepping down in 1996, just one year shy of Zeta Psi’s sesquicentennial. Though unquestionably the driving force behind much of Zeta Psi’s institutional success, like all great men he benefitted from able help. The Strategic Planning committee was formed under the chairmanship of Br Robert Busteed (Ο 1960) to study and report back on long-term goals of the fraternity, implementing the Star Points program which directs the focus of the international fraternity on five issues: organization, programming, alumni relations, chapter development, and brand marketing. Ambitious new programs for bringing together disparate actives and elders have been implemented with the generous support of alumni Br Dr Louis Capozzoli Jr (Φ 1947) for the Leadership Training Institute run by the Educational Foundation, and Br Alan H Rice (ΑΒ 1950) for the Alumni Development Program. Since their initial endowments, the programs have only expanded. Leadership Training Instituttes are now held several times a year at different chapters to allow different geographical areas to attend, and allow not only the nurturing of mnore effective government in chapters but also for brothers from disparate chapters to meet regionaly between national conventions.

The sesquicentennial of Zeta Psi in 1997 was celebrated with a decadent gala in New York, so grand and expansive that all three Manhattan chapters—Phi, Alpha, and Kappa Phi—were each called on to organize and host events throughout the weekend. The New York Times reported on the festivities, and Zetes from every reach of the continent ran the city dry. The fête coincided with the turning of the millennium, with all the portentous meaning inhering to that date. The new decade, the new century, the new chiliad all augur well for a fraternity in the hands of dedicated leaders running a tight organization around which chapters throughout the continent cluster and multiply. There is no doubt that the Story of Zeta Psi will continue to unfold, and that the fraternity will remain a pivotal anchor for all its brothers, long into the otherwise uncertain future.

The official color of the fraternity is white, the secondary color is gold, and the tertiary color is black.

The fraternity flower is the white carnation.

The pennant (flag) of the fraternity depicts the Greek letters zeta and psi, wrought in gold with a black outline, set on a white field.

The escutcheon The Zeta Psi escutcheon is composed of a shield divided quarterly—the chief dexter tierced pallwise with proper skull, book, parchment and crossed swords on a Gules field, surmounting a Sable field, dexter and an argent star on azure sinister. The chief sinister quarterly divided per satire. A proper crossed Roman fasces joined with an argent star with a Greek letter phi on a vert field. A pair of sable lips on argent, sinister. A sable annulus linked with an or alpha on azure. A sable eye and ear on or dexter. The inferior dexter simple quarterly. An or lamp, chief dexter. A proper book on azure field, sinister. A proper hand on argent field, or lyre on azure, and proper quill on argent. The inferior sinister unpartitioned with a proper caduceus surrounded by a wreath of argent flowers on an or field. An inescutcheon appears with a perfect circle or on an argent field. The shield is shown above a proper wreath of oak leaves and acorns with a proper badge of zeta psi at their center. It is surmounted by a proper star, below which appear the motto in Greek letters tau, kappa, phi in sable.

The public motto is Τ Κ Φ (Tau Kappa Phi), the significance of which is considered one of the fraternity's mysteries.

The badge of Zeta Psi consists of “a gold pin formed of the Greek letters zeta and psi and there shall be engraved upon it the letters O and A.” The arms of the psi are also engraved, with a Roman fasces upon the left and a star upon the right. The badge is set with seven stones (usually pearl or jet) along each of the bars of the zeta, for a total of twenty-one.

The following list is necessarily incomplete:

Main article: List of Zeta Psi Chapters

  1. ^ Medal of Honor Recipients from NIC Member Fraternities. North-American Interfraternity Conference. Retrieved on 2007-05-12.

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North-American Interfraternity Conference

Acacia • Alpha Gamma Rho • Alpha Gamma Sigma • Alpha Delta Gamma • Alpha Delta Phi • Alpha Epsilon Pi • Alpha Kappa Lambda • Alpha Sigma Phi • Alpha Tau Omega • Alpha Phi Alpha • Alpha Phi Delta • Alpha Chi Rho • Beta Sigma Psi • Beta Theta Pi • Beta Chi Theta • Delta Kappa Epsilon • Delta Sigma Phi • Delta Tau Delta • Delta Upsilon • Delta Phi • Delta Chi • Delta Psi • FarmHouse • Zeta Beta Tau • Zeta Psi • Theta Delta Chi • Theta Xi • Theta Chi • Iota Nu Delta • Iota Phi Theta • Kappa Alpha Order • Kappa Alpha Psi • Kappa Alpha Society • Kappa Delta Rho • Kappa Delta Phi • Lambda Theta Phi • Lambda Sigma Upsilon • Lambda Phi Epsilon • Lambda Chi Alpha • Pi Kappa Alpha • Pi Kappa Phi • Pi Lambda Phi • Sigma Alpha Epsilon • Sigma Alpha Mu • Sigma Lambda Beta • Sigma Nu • Sigma Pi • Sigma Tau Gamma • Sigma Phi Delta • Sigma Phi Epsilon • Sigma Phi Society • Sigma Chi • Tau Delta Phi • Tau Epsilon Phi • Tau Kappa Epsilon • Triangle • Phi Gamma Delta • Phi Iota Alpha • Phi Kappa Theta • Phi Kappa Sigma • Phi Kappa Tau • Phi Kappa Psi • Phi Lambda Chi • Phi Mu Delta • Phi Sigma Kappa • Phi Sigma Phi • Chi Phi • Chi Psi • Psi Upsilon
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeta_Psi"
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