Theta Delta Chi
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ΘΔΧ - Theta Delta Chi
The Theta Delta Chi Crest
Founded October 31, 1847 (1847-10-31) (age 160) at Union College
Website www.tdx.org
Founders
Motto Our Hearts are United.
Executive Director William McClung, Iota Deuteron '66
Colors Blue, White, and Black
Flower Red Carnation
Patron Saint Minerva
Principles Improving the Intellectual, Moral, and Social Being Through Friendship

Theta Delta Chi (ΘΔΧ, Theta Delt) is a social fraternity that was founded in 1847 at Union College. While nicknames differ from institution to institution, the most common nicknames for the fraternity are Theta Delt, Thete, TDX, and TDC. Theta Delta Chi brothers refer to their local organization as Charges rather than using the common fraternity nomenclature of chapter.

Contents

History

Origins and growth

Theta Delta Chi, the eleventh oldest of the college fraternities, was founded in 1847 at Union College in Schenectady, NY by six members of the class of 1849: William G. Akin, Abel Beach, Theodore Brown, Andrew H. Green, William Hyslop, and Samuel F. Wile. In 1849, Green and Akin along with Francis Martindale (the first initiate), organized the Beta Charge (later renamed Beta Proteron) at Ballston Law School. However, two years later the school itself moved and the new Charge was disbanded and the members put on Alpha's rolls.

During the 1850s Theta Delta Chi spread rapidly, adding Charges at Vermont, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, William and Mary, Virginia (1857), Hobart, Wesleyan, Harvard, Brown, Bowdoin, Kenyon, Tufts, Washington and Jefferson, and North Carolina. Few of these remained active for long, although several were later revived. Kappa at Tufts (1856) presently enjoys the honor of being the oldest active Charge in continuous existence.

During the 1860s new Charges, at, among other institutions, Lafayette and Rochester (1867), Hamilton (1868), and Dartmouth (1869), continued to be chartered at a pace that kept slightly ahead of attrition caused by Charges going inactive. The Civil War, however, severely weakened most Charges as men left for military service; many of the earliest Charges went inactive during this period, and expansion in the South ceased for a century.

Beta Charge House at Cornell University
Beta Charge House at Cornell University

Only after 1870 did Theta Delta Chi begin to acquire its present configuration. Westward expansion had traditionally been opposed by a large segment of the Fraternity, which worried that supervision and solidarity would suffer if Theta Delta Chi were to stray far from the East. The rise of the large state universities in the West, particularly in the Big Ten, eventually overcame that resistance and the Universities of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin welcomed Theta Delta Chi between 1889 and 1895. Further Midwest expansion included Illinois (1908) and Iowa State (1919). Berkeley (1900), Stanford (1903), the University of Washington (1913) and UCLA (1929) brought Theta Delta Chi in strength to the Pacific coast.

Expansion in the East during the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s brought Charges to Cornell, Boston University, Wabash, CCNY, Columbia, Lehigh, Amherst, Yale, MIT, Williams, and George Washington. Pennsylvania (1915) was the last Eastern Charge to become active before World War I, although 1904 and 1910 saw the reactivation of the Southern Charges, Epsilon and Nu.

Theta Delta Chi became an International Fraternity with charterings at McGill (1901) and Toronto (1912).

The Great Depression and the Second World War saw a number of Charges go inactive and brought a halt to expansion. At its Centennial Convention in 1947, Theta Delta Chi stood at 28 Charges, a number that would begin to increase only in the 1950s.

Institutional development

The institutions of the Fraternity slowly took shape during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1867 anti-fraternity sentiment at Union led to the disbanding of the Alpha. As the Mother Charge, Alpha had exercised governing power over the Fraternity, but her demise, although temporary, brought about the creation of the Grand Lodge by action of the eight surviving Charges at the Convention of 1868. The Grand Lodge, originally three and now five officers (of whom two are undergraduates) remains the elected governing body of the Fraternity to this day (Alpha was rechartered in 1923, although executive power has remained with the Grand Lodge).

The Badge of Theta Delta Chi.
The Badge of Theta Delta Chi.

The annual Convention has evolved into a major international assembling of Theta Delts at which all Charges are represented by undergraduate and graduate delegates and at which the major business of the Fraternity is transacted.

The 1881 Convention required that the President of the Grand Lodge visit every Charge once a year; Central Fraternity Office staff now performs these duties. In 1869, the first issue of The Shield was produced, qualifying it as the oldest fraternity magazine. Although it lapsed after one issue, The Shield was revived in 1884 and has been published continually since then.

The Central Fraternity Office, or CFO, evolved over many decades from a virtually one-man job, filled by a Grand Lodge member, and housed in the now defunct Theta Delta Chi Club in New York City, to a professional staff consisting of an Executive Director, a Director of Operations, two Charge Consultants (formally called Field Secretaries), and one or more undergraduate interns, referred to as Member Service Coordinators. It currently operates from 214 Lewis Wharf in Boston, Massachusetts.

The financial health of Theta Delta Chi was ensured through the establishment of two entities, the Founders' Corporation in 1910 and the Educational Foundation in 1944. Any Theta Delt may join the Corporation on payment of $250 and thereby vote at its annual meetings. It also receives bequests and holds and invests all funds for the benefit of the Fraternity. The Educational Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) public charity, receives bequests and owns the property occupied by the CFO and other assets. It funds the educational activities of the Fraternity.

Modern expansion

Between 1951 and 1970 the Fraternity added Charges at Northwestern, Penn State, Arizona State, Rhode Island, Michigan State, Santa Barbara, Calgary, Virginia Tech, and Virginia Commonwealth; Bucknell was rechartered also. Several of these charterings brought into being some of the strongest Charges in the Fraternity, but in the increasingly uncertain climate of those times, with anti-fraternity sentiment gaining strength on a number of campuses, a significant number went inactive. The 1992 rechartering at Wabash continues a pattern of reviving inactive Charges; new charterings in the 1990s and 2000 include Northeastern, Nova Southeastern, UNC-Greensboro, SUNY Albany and Merrimack. The Fort Lauderdale, FL and Greensboro, NC Charges marked a significant re-entry into the South.

The expansion continued as the UNC-Greensboro Charge inspired students at the University of South Carolina to start a colony. They are reviving the pre-Civil War "Rho" Charge which was known to have existed, but all records are lost. They are thought to have been destroyed when Union soldiers burnt down the city of Columbia. Thus their Charge name when installed on February 29, 2008 is Rho Proteron.

With the start of the new millennium, Theta Delta Chi has worked to revive several of its defunct Charges, while installing Charges on new campuses. The Chi Charge, founded in 1867, and active for most of the time since then was re-chartered in the summer of 2002 at the 155th Annual Convention. Following a brief closure, the Epsilon Charge returned to the active ranks in August 2004. Theta Delta Chi has also worked to increase its presence in the northeast with the installation of the Iota Triton Charge at UMass Dartmouth in 2005, and the creation of the Iota colony at Harvard.

Sigma Deuteron Charge House at the University of Wisconsin.
Sigma Deuteron Charge House at the University of Wisconsin.

Yet the active Charge roll call remains in flux, as the fraternity has lost several Charges, young and old, since 2001; losing Omicron Triton at URI (2001), Psi Deuteron at UCLA (2003), Nu Deuteron at Lehigh (2004), Delta Triton at Northeastern (2005), Eta Triton at Nova Southeastern (2005), and most recently Mu Deuteron at Amherst (2006). While these losses are dishearting, the Grand Lodge and Central Fraternity Office have worked progressively for the betterment of the fraternity, and Theta Delta Chi enters the future with the most stable foundation it has had in nearly a decade.

As such, in the fall of 2006, Theta Delta Chi established a colony at Arizona State to revive the Epsilon Triton Charge [1]. The fraternity also established colonies at Binghamton University [1], Marist College [1] and the University of South Carolina during the current academic year. On April 28, 2007, the Grand Lodge chartered the Theta Triton Charge at Binghamton University, adding stability to Theta Delta Chi. The Tau Triton Charge at Marist College and the Lambda Triton Charge at Rutgers University were chartered on April 19th and 20th respectively with the Epsilon Triton Charge being re-chartered on April 26th, 2008. This puts the present roll standing at 29 Charges and 1 colony. In addition, the Fraternity plans to recognize the Xi Colony at Hobart College in May 2008. Further expansion in the west is planned with an anticipated return to UCLA in 2008.

Finally, in April 2007, the Grand Lodge hosted the inaugural Preamble Institute [2] for its undergraduate leaders, ever hoping to improve the intellectual, moral and social being of its brotherhood. With other programming initiatives on the horizon, the fraternity seems poised for success in the coming years.

Charges and Colonies

Main article: List of Theta Delta Chi charges

Notable alumni

[3]

Arts

  • John Brougham, New York Graduate 1857, 19th Century actor, dramatist, and orator
  • Fitz James O'Brien, New York Graduate 1857, New York Literary Bohemian, science fiction pioneer
  • Robert Frost, Dartmouth 1896, four time Pulitzer Prize winning poet
Robert Frost, Dartmouth 1896.
Robert Frost, Dartmouth 1896.
  • Alexander Woolcott, Hamilton 1896, drama critic NY Times, Herald-Tribune, Sun.
  • Norman Hackett, Michigan 1898, actor
  • Bellamy Partridge, Hobart 1900, author of “County Lawyer”
  • Donald Parson, Harvard 1905, author “Portraits of Keats” “Grass Flowers”
  • Stanton Griffis, Cornell 1910, former Chairman of Board of Paramount Pictures and Madison Square Garden
  • Arthur Hornblow, Jr., Dartmouth 1915, film producer Paramount and MGM
  • Eric Johnston, Washington 1917, President of US Chamber of Commerce, Motion Picture Association of America
  • Pat Ballard, Penn 1922, composer of the #1 song of 1954 "Mr. Sandman"
  • Frank Thomas, Stanford 1933, Thumpers (Bambi) creator
  • John Dunning, UCLA 1939, film editor, Oscar winner for "Ben Hur"
  • Tad Mosel, Amherst 1944, Pulitzer Prize for “All the Way Home”
  • Gardner McKay, Cornell 1953, actor, drama critic
  • John Nichols, Hamilton 1962, author “the Milagro Bean Field War” “the Sterile Cuckoo”

Journalism

Medicine

  • Frank Lahey, Harvard 1904, Founder of Boston’s Lahey Clinic
  • Oliver Beahrs, Berkeley 1937, Head Surgery at the Mayo Clinic
  • Park Dietz, Cornell 1970, Renowned Forensic Psychologist

Public Life

Jerry Lewis, UCLA '56, US House of Rep. for California.
Jerry Lewis, UCLA '56, US House of Rep. for California.
Michael Powell, William and Mary '85, Former Chairman of the FCC.
Michael Powell, William and Mary '85, Former Chairman of the FCC.

Education

Scholarship

  • Stephen M. Babcock, Tufts 1886, inventor of the Babcock Centrifuge (butterfat testing)
  • Herbert E. Bolton, Wisconsin 1895, President of the American Historical Association
  • Carlos Baker, Dartmouth 1932, Hemingway biographer, scholar of Princeton University
Donald B. MacMillan, Bowdoin 1897, Arctic Explorer.
Donald B. MacMillan, Bowdoin 1897, Arctic Explorer.

Military

Architecture

Business

  • James R. Mellon, Washington and Jefferson 1865, President of Ligonier Valley Railroad
  • Eugene Grace, Lehigh 1899, Chairman of the Board of Bethlehem Steel
  • J. Frank Drake, Dartmouth 1902, Chairman of the Board of Gulf Oil Corporation
  • Harvey Dow Gibson, Bowdoin 1902, President of the Manufacturers Trust Co
  • Stanton Griffs, Cornell 1910, Chairman of the Board of Madison Square Garden
  • Willard H. Dow, Williams 1919, President of Dow Chemical Corporation
  • Leo D. Welch, Rochester 1919, Chairman of the Board of Standard Oil
Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr., Brown '32, Former President of TWA.
Charles C. Tillinghast, Jr., Brown '32, Former President of TWA.

Engineering & Science

Sport

  • John W. Allyn, Lafayette 1939, owner of Chicago White Sox
  • Donald Canham, Michigan 1941, University of Michigan Athletic Director
  • Harry Dalton, Amherst 1950, Executive VP Milwaukee Brewers
  • William P. Ficker, Berkeley 1950, Winner of America’s Cup Race
  • Benjamin L. Abruzzo, Illinois 1952, Crewmember of “Double Eagle II” (first trans-Atlantic balloon flight)
  • Mark Donahue, Brown 1959, Indianapolis 500 Winner
  • Darrin Nelson, Stanford 1981, Stanford All-American, player Minnesota Vikings
  • Jeffrey L. Ballard, Stanford 1982, baseball player for Baltimore Orioles
  • Chuck Muncie, Berkeley 1975, player New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers
  • James Lofton, Stanford 1978, NFL wide receiver, 2004 NFL Hall of Fame Inductee
  • Garin Veris, Stanford 1985, player New England Patriots and San Francisco 49ers
  • John Brody, Tufts 1995, Major League Baseball Senior VP of Corporate Sales and Marketing
  • Sean Morey, Brown 1999, player New England Patriots, Philadelphia Eagles, Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals 1999-present
  • Chas Gessner, Brown 2003, player New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2003-present
  • Nick Thompson, Wisconsin 2004, MMA fighter, Bodog Fight, UFC, EliteXC
  • Zak DeOssie, Brown 2007, player 2007 4th round draft pick New York Giants

Clergy

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Shield of Theta Delta Chi" (2007). Retrieved on 2007-04-21. 
  2. ^ "The Preamble Institute". Theta Delta Chi. Retrieved on 2007-04-21.
  3. ^ Unless otherwise cited, the referenced alumni can be found in: Ed. McCready, Adam (2004). The Theta Delta Chi Membership Handbook. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Offset Printing. 
  4. ^ "Theta Delta Chi Political Members" (2008).
  5. ^ "Philleo Nash (1909 - 1987)" (1988). 

External links

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