Theta Nu Epsilon Society - History of the Northwestern Chapter

The Theta Nu Epsilon Society.

The Psi Chapter at Northwestern University.

The Psi Chapter at Northwestern University was founded in 1893, it may have been founded illegitimately, but it was legitimized in 1898 by the Alpha Chapter.

The Psi Chapter at Northwestern University received a nice bit of coverage in the campus paper when it was instituted :

“Northwestern University has been recognized by eastern college men in the granting of a charter for a chapter of Theta Nu Epsilon, the sophomore society founded at Wesleyan University in 1870. This fraternity is the largest and most powerful class society in existence and the only sophomore society in existence recognized by Baird’s American College Fraternities. Psi, the chapter at Northwestern, is the twenty-second chapter founded by the fraternity and the third west of the Alleghany Mountains. The fraternity has prosperous chapters in almost every prominent eastern institution of learning, among them being Wesleyan, Amherst, Cornell, Williams, Union and the University of Pennsylvania.

“Membership is limited to a small number of men in the sophomore class; and among eastern men a ‘bid to T.N.E.’ is considered as one of the most gratifying recognitions of worth it is possible for a student to receive at the hands of his fellows. Membership becomes honorary as the close of the sophomore year and a new crowd of representative ‘Sophs’ keeps up the good work. The active chapter is strictly sub rosa and the men do not wear the ‘skull and keys’ until the end of their sophomore year.

“The fraternity aims to foster and build up loyalty to Alma mater and to create a broader feeling of friendship among the men of different fraternities as well as non-fraternity men who compose its membership. As a result of the narrowness and exclusiveness sometimes said to arise from membership in the ordinary Greek-letter 'frat’ are largely done away with.

“The charter for the Psi chapter was granted last year to the following ten members of the class of ’95 : Ernest H. Eversz, Burton E. Emmett, Carey Culberson, George F. Ballon, W. F. Burns, H. P. Pearsons, J. W. Moulding, A. B. Harbert, Frank McElwain, Gordon A. Ramsey.

“There are quite a number of T.N.E. alumni in Evanston and in the faculty there are two: Prof. C. B. Atwell and Prof. J. Scott Clark.”

The Northwestern, September 29, 1893.

The Psi Chapter, because it remained true to the traditions of the society, was purged from the society in the 1913-16 Interfraternity Conflict. At some point it was restored, but then driven from the society again in 1923, and was likely a part of the N. P. of T. N. E. until the chapter fell victim to the great depression in 1930.