The Creed of Alpha Tau Omega
To bind men together in a brotherhood based upon eternal and
immutable principles, with a bond as strong as right itself, and as
lasting as humanity; to know no north, no south, no east, no west,
but to know man as man, to teach that true men the world over should
stand together and contend for supremacy of good over evil; to teach
not politics, but morals; to foster not partisanship, but the
recognition of true merit wherever found; to have no narrower limits
within which to work together for the elevation of man than the
outlines of the world; these were the thoughts and hopes uppermost
in the minds of the founders of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.
Otis Allan Glazebrook, 1880 |
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Facts and Firsts (From
www.ato.org)
The Facts:
- ATO was founded by Otis Allan Glazebrook, Erskine Mayo Ross
and Alfred Marshall, at the Virginia Military Institute in 1865
upon Christian and brotherly love, with Christian—not
Greek—principles.
- ATO was not established in imitation of or in opposition to
any existing fraternity.
- The ATO Foundation was officially recognized in June of 1935
at the 34th Congress in Memphis, Tenn.
- The LeaderShape Institute, Inc. was created in 1986 by Alpha
Tau Omega, and is considered one of the finest leadership skills
training programs in the country.
- ATO was honored by the Smithsonian Institute for innovative
use of technology with an award for Information Technology in the
field of Government and Non-Profit Organizations in June 1995. The
award was given for ATO's innovative use of CompuServe as a
communications tool.
- After more than 84 years with its national office in
Champaign, Ill., the ATO National Headquarters moved to
Indianapolis,Ind., on December 13, 1995.
- ATO annually ranks among the top ten national fraternities for
number of chapters and total number of members. ATO has more than
240 active and inactive chapters with more than 181,000 members
and more than 6,500 undergraduate members.
- The ATO Foundation provides more than $150,000 in annual
scholarships to members—including scholarships to attend the
LeaderShape Institute, Inc.
- Alpha Tau Omega is a participating member in the National
Interfraternity Conference, the Fraternity Executives Association,
the College Fraternity Editors Association, the Council for the
Advancement and Support of Education, FIPG, Inc., and the
Fraternal Risk Management Trust.
- In 1950 Indiana University Worthy Master Robert Lollar created
"Help Week" setting the pledges to doing good deeds around campus
and replacing the traditional "Hell Week."
The Firsts:
- ATO was the first fraternity founded after the Civil War in
1865, striving to heal the wounds created by the devastating war
and help reunite the North and South.
- ATO was the first fraternity founded as a national fraternity.
- The first meeting of ATO was at 114 E. Clay St. in Richmond,
Va., where Glazebrook read the Constitution of ATO to Marshall and
Ross for the first time.
- The first chapter north of the Mason–Dixon line, was chartered
at the University of Pennsylvania 16 years after the founding of
ATO, helping to bring a realization to the founders' dreams.
- In 1880, the ATO chapter at the University of the South
(Sewanee) became the first of any fraternity in the South to have
a chapter house.
- ATO's first fraternity west of the Rockies and first of any
fraternity in the Northwest was at Oregon State University in
1882.
- Thomas Arkle Clark, the first initiate of the Gamma Zeta
chapter at the University of Illinois, was the nation's first
collegiate dean of men.
- The first World War I Medal of Honor was given to Captain C.
L. Irwin, Wyoming '13, as one of the first American heroes
mentioned in dispatches to the U.S.
- ATO was the first national fraternity to start a chapter free
of alcohol and tobacco on fraternity property.
- ATO was the first national fraternity to sponsor and conduct
coeducational leadership conferences nationwide in 1992.
For more information on the history of Alpha Tau Omega, please
visit:
www.ato.org. |
