Alpha Tau Omega

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ΑΤΩ - Alpha Tau Omega
Image:ATO_Crest_2.JPG
ATΩ Crest
Motto πι εψιλον πι
Colors Azure and Old Gold
Symbol Heraldic Cross Pattee
Flower White Tea Rose
Founded September 11, 1865 at Virginia Military Institute
Type Leadership, Social
Scope National
Headquarters One North Pennsylvania Street, 12th Floor
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Chapters 245
Nickname Taus, Alpha Taus, ATOs
Homepage http://www.ato.org

ATΩ (Alpha Tau Omega) is an American fraternity. It annually ranks among the top ten national fraternities for number of chapters and total number of members. ATO has more than 245 active and inactive chapters with more than 195,000 members and more than 6,500 undergraduate members. ATO is also one-third of the Lexington Triad, along with Kappa Alpha Order and Sigma Nu.

Contents

[edit] 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

[edit] History

Alpha Tau Omega began as an idea in the mind of a young American Civil War veteran who wanted peace and reconciliation. His name was Otis Allan Glazebrook. His people were defeated, many of their cities burned, much of their countryside ravaged. But Glazebrook, who had helped bury the dead of both sides, believed in a better future. He saw the bitterness and hatred that followed the silencing of the guns and knew that a true peace would come not from force of law, but rather from with the hearts of men who were willing to work to rekindle a spirit of brotherly love.

Most people weren't ready for sermons on brotherly love. John Wise, a classmate of Glazebrook's at Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, and a member of Beta Theta Pi, put it this way when he wrote of that time: "For four years we had been fighting. In that struggle, all we loved had been lost... in blood and flame and torture the temples of our lives were tumbling about our head... we were poor, starved, conquered, despairing; and to expect men to have no malice and no vindictiveness at such a time is to look for angels in human form."

Glazebrook, deeply religious at age 19, believed that younger men like himself might be more willing to accept, forgive, and reunite with the Northern counterparts if motivated by Christian, brotherly love. But he needed an organization, a means of gathering and organizing like-minded people. That was why a letter caught his attention. As cadet adjunct for the VMI Cadet Corps, Glazebrook routinely handled mail addressed to the Institute's Superintendent, General Francis H. Smith. One such letter came from an official of a leading northern fraternity who wanted help in reviving his southern chapters. (The South lost all 142 of its fraternity chapters during the war, and it was only with great effort that they were revived and expanded.) Fascinated, Glazebrook asked Gen. Smith about fraternities. As Gen. Smith explained what they were, Glazebrook knew he had found his organization.

In Richmond, Glazebrook consulted with University of Virginia alumni who furnished further information concerning fraternities. He discovered that they were not Greek in name only, but Greek throughout. Their mottoes, besides being written in Greek, reflected Greek ideals.

Greek philosophy, sometimes tinged with the medieval mysteries and Masonic lore, waste the cultural ideal of the fraternities. Glazebrook had been a proficient student of Greek at Randolph-Macon College before he entered the Institute. While admiring the language he recoiled from Greek Philosophy, ideology, mythologies, ethics and morals.

Reared in a devout Christian home, confirmed at historic St. Paul's in Richmond, he had served as a lay reader in St. Mark's. Essentially a religious man, typical of his time, he believed implicitly in more government of the universe, convinced that morals are of God, ordained by Him. He thought and taught, in its highest and noblest manifestations is the unique and supreme gift of Jesus Christ.

Glazebrook could contemplate fraternity only in terms of Christian love. Out of his prolonged meditation emerged the concept of a fraternity Greek in name only; the Greek name, the visible symbol of passionate conviction that peace and brotherhood could be achieved under the protection of Jesus Christ.

The name came spontaneously. As a boy and youth in St. Paul's and St. Mark's, Glazebrook had seen the ancient insignia of the Church, first discovered in the ancient catacombs, depicted upon their walls, ceilings, or other ecclesiastical objects, the Tau Cross subjoined by Alpha and Omega. "Alpha" and "Omega" signify to the Christian absolute plenitude or perfection. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." Joined with the Cross the whole signifies that Christ is all in all, the beginning and end of salvation.

Having projected a Christian fraternity and appropriated a distinctively Christian symbol for its name, the Cross naturally was its logical emblem. For it, Glazebrook selected a form he thought was the Maltese Cross, though actually it is the heraldic cross pattee. In the center he inscribed a crescent, three stars, the Tau Cross and clasped hands. Upon the upper and lower vertical arms he placed the Greek letters for Alpha and Omega and upon the horizontal arms, the Omega and Alpha letters respectively.

On September 11, 1865, Glazebrook invited two close friends to his home at 114 East Clay Street in Richmond, Virginia. There, in the rear parlor, he read them the Constitution he had written and invited them to sign. As they did, Alpha Tau Omega was born. It was the first fraternity founded after the Civil War, and the first sign of Greek life in the old Confederacy.

Glazebrook had chosen his co-founders well. Alfred Marshall, a friend of Glazebrook's from boyhood, was first captain of the VMI Cadet Corps and a popular individual. He was the spirited man of the trio, the man of action, the one most likely to attract new members. Erskine Mayo Ross, who ultimately became a federal judge, gave a sense of order to the meeting. He could curb the sometimes reckless energies of Marshall without dampening the charge of Glazebrook's ideas. The three formed a well-balanced group.

[edit] Founders

Otis Allan Glazebrook, Alfred Marshall, Erskine Mayo Ross

[edit] ATO 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.[citation needed]

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.

Thomas Arkle Clark 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.[citation needed]

ATO's first fraternity west of the Rockies and first of any fraternity in the Northwest was at Oregon State University in 1882.[citation needed]

Thomas Arkle Clark, the first initiate of the Gamma Zeta chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 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.[citation needed]

ATO was the first national fraternity to sponsor and conduct coeducational leadership conferences nationwide in 1992.[citation needed]

ATO was the first fraternity to implement a spiritual development program.[citation needed]

ATO was the first to develop and implement a member success initiative.[citation needed]

ATO founded the LeaderShape Institute in 1986, which is a prestigious leadership development program for college students across the United States.

[edit] Famous ATO members

[edit] Astronauts

[edit] Business

[edit] Education

[edit] Entertainment/Media

[edit] Politics

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[edit] External links


North-American Interfraternity Conference
Acacia  • Alpha Chi Rho  • Alpha Delta Gamma  • Alpha Delta Phi  • Alpha Epsilon Pi  • Alpha Gamma Rho  • Alpha Gamma Sigma  • Alpha Kappa Lambda  • Alpha Phi Alpha  • Alpha Phi Delta  • Alpha Sigma Phi  • Alpha Tau Omega  • Beta Chi Theta  • Beta Sigma Psi  • Beta Theta Pi  • Chi Phi  • Chi Psi  • Delta Chi  • Delta Kappa Epsilon  • Delta Phi  • Delta Psi  • Delta Sigma Phi  • Delta Tau Delta  • Delta Upsilon  • FarmHouse  • Iota Phi Theta  • Kappa Alpha Order  • Kappa Alpha Psi  • Kappa Alpha Society  • Kappa Delta Phi  • Kappa Delta Rho  • Lambda Chi Alpha  • Lambda Phi Epsilon  • Lambda Sigma Upsilon  • Lambda Theta Phi  • Phi Gamma Delta  • Phi Iota Alpha  • Phi Kappa Psi  • Phi Kappa Sigma  • Phi Kappa Tau  • Phi Kappa Theta  • Phi Lambda Chi  • Phi Mu Delta  • Phi Sigma Kappa  • Phi Sigma Phi  • Pi Kappa Alpha  • Pi Kappa Phi  • Pi Lambda Phi  • Psi Upsilon  • Sigma Alpha Epsilon  • Sigma Alpha Mu  • Sigma Chi  • Sigma Lambda Beta  • Sigma Nu  • Sigma Phi Delta  • Sigma Phi Epsilon  • Sigma Phi Society  • Sigma Pi  • Sigma Tau Gamma  • Tau Delta Phi  • Tau Epsilon Phi  • Tau Kappa Epsilon  • Theta Chi  • Theta Delta Chi  • Theta Xi  • Triangle  • Zeta Beta Tau  • Zeta Psi
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