Delta Kappa Epsilon

ΔΚΕ (Delta Kappa Epsilon) (also pronounced D K E or "Deke") is the oldest secret college men's fraternity of New England origin. Founded at Yale College by 15 men of the sophomore class who, upon hearing that some but not all of them had been invited to join the two existing societies (Alpha Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon), instead elected to form their own fraternity. These men sought to establish a fellowship "where the candidate most favored was he who combined in the most equal proportions the gentleman, the scholar, and the jolly good fellow."

Contents

1 Founding and history 2 Famous alumni 3 Active chapters 4 External links and references

Founding and history

The society was founded June 22, 1844, in number 12 Old South Hall, Yale College. At this meeting, the Fraternity's secret and open Greek mottos were devised. The open motto is "Kerothen Philoi Aei" ("Friends from the Heart, Forever"). The pin and secret handshake was also devised. The DKE pin shows ΔΚΕ on a scroll, upon a diamond with a star in each corner. DKE's heraldic colours are azure (blue), or (gold), and gules (crimson) and its flag is a triband of those colours with a left-facing rampant lion in the middle.

Within three years of the founding at Yale, chapters were founded at Bowdoin, Princeton University, Colby College, and Amherst College. Since that time, DKE has grown to over 64 chapters and has initiated over 85,000 members across North America.

DKE is inextricably linked to the history of the United States of America, as its members have included five of forty-three Presidents of the United States: Rutherford B. Hayes, Theodore Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

During the Civil War, the first Union officer killed in battle was a Deke, Theodore Winthrop of Phi. Six weeks after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Philip Spence of Zeta commanded Confederate troops in their last organized battle of the war.

In the election of 1876, the Republican Party chose between two Dekes, nominating Hayes rather than rival and fellow DKE James G. Blaine, who later served two administrations as Secretary of State and who authored the Fourteenth Amendment; Blaine also ran unsuccessfully for President.

During the Spanish-American War, the first American officer to be killed was a DKE, Surgeon John B. Gibbs (Rutgers), and his brother in DKE J. Frank Aldritch (DePauw) dies when the USS Maine is sunk. In this same war, DKE Theodore Roosevelt distinguishes himself and starts on his path to the Presidency.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a member of a DKE Chapter (Alpha at Harvard) that had been suspended for conflict with the international organization, and for this reason he is not typically numbered among the Presidents who were Dekes. The fraternity's membership has also included dozens of American and Canadian politicians, businessmen, sports figures, and artists who have achieved iconic status, including among many others J.P. Morgan, William Randolph Hearst, Cole Porter, Henry Cabot Lodge, Dick Clark, Tom Landry, and George Steinbrenner. Deke flags have been carried to the North Pole, by Admiral Robert Peary (Theta), and to the Moon, by astronaut Alan Bean (Omega Chi).

Delta Kappa Epsilon administers a charitable organization called the Rampant Lion Foundation. As well, Deke has championed an organization call ROAR, which stands for Restore Our Associational Rights. ROAR campaigns for the freedom of fraternities and greek organizations in general to operate without interference and discrimination from university administrations or others.

During the presidency of George W. Bush, questions were raised as to whether DKE initiates were branded with a small Δ on their buttocks in an act of hazing. Though apparently some dekes (the number ranges from 2-5 between sources) were branded, it was entirely voluntary and was not part of any initiation rite; in fact those who were branded had already been members for several years.

Famous alumni

Presidents of the United States

• Rutherford B. Hayes, Delta Chi (Hayes was not actually a Deke; his two sons were, and the fraternity later conferred honorary membership upon him).
• Theodore Roosevelt, Alpha
• Gerald R. Ford, Omicron
• George H. W. Bush, Phi
• George W. Bush, Phi

Vice Presidents of the United States

• J. Danforth Quayle, Psi Phi

Sitting state governors

• George Pataki, New York (Honorary)
• Tony Knowles, Phi, Alaska
• Don Siegelman, Psi, Alabama

Newspaper publishers and editors

• Whitelaw Reid, Kappa, Editor-in-chief, New York Tribune
• William Randolph Hearst, Alpha, Publisher, Hearst Newspapers
• Otis Chandler, Sigma Rho, Publisher, Los Angeles Times
• Richard J. V. Johnson, Omega Chi, Publisher, Houston Chronicle
• Eugene Pulliam, Psi Phi, Publisher, Indianapolis Newspapers, Inc.
• Rance Craine, Psi Phi, Publisher, Crain Communications

Justices of the United States Supreme Court

• John Hessin Clarke, Beta Chi
• Harold H. Burton, Theta
• Potter Stewart, Phi

Businessmen

• John F. Akers, Phi - Past President of I.B.M.
• J. Pierpont Morgan, Alpha - financier
• Irving H. Chase, Phi - Chase Manhattan Bank
• Dean Witter, Jr., Phi - Dean Witter & Co. (Now part of Morgan Stanley)
• Edward Bausch, Beta Phi - Bausch & Lomb Opticals
• William W. Wrigley, Phi - Wrigley Company
• Howard Heinz, Phi - H. J. Heinz Company
• Howard Johnson, Phi - Howard Johnson Motor Inns
• James M. Gamble, Lambda - Procter & Gamble
• Herb Kelleher, Gamma Phi - Southwest Airlines
• Fred Smith, Phi - Federal Express
• Craig McCaw, Sigma Rho - McCaw Wireless, cellular telephones

Famous political figures

• Henry Cabot Lodge, Alpha - Senate Majority Leader
• James G. Blaine, Theta - Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and Presidential Candidate
• Dean G. Acheson, Phi - Secretary of State under Harry S. Truman
• William Simon, Rho - Secretary of the Treasury
• Mario Garcia Menocal, Delta Chi - President of the Republic of Cuba
• Yuan Schikau, Phi - Prime Minister of the Chinese Empire
• Rear Admiral Sidney W. Souers, Kappa - first director of the C.I.A.
• Robert Todd Lincoln, Alpha - Secretary of War, son of Abraham Lincoln

Sports and entertainment

• Cole Porter, Phi - composer
• Charles Ives, Phi - composer
• Paul Brown, Kappa - coach of Cleveland Browns and owner of the Cincinnati Bengals
• Thomas W. Landry, Omega Chi - coach of Dallas Cowboys
• Joe Paterno, Upsilon - Penn State football coach
• George Steinbrenner, Epsilon - owner of the New York Yankees
• Don Schollander, Phi - won four gold medals in swimming in the 1964 Summer Olympics
• Hugh Culverhouse, Psi - owner of Tampa Bay Buccaneers
• A. Bartlett Giamatti, Phi - Commissioner of Major League Baseball
• Dick Clark, Phi Gamma - hosted American Bandstand
• Harry Hamlin, Theta Zeta - actor
• Jonathan Winters, Lambda - comedian and writer
• Bob Pettit, Zeta Zeta - National Basketball Association All star and hall of famer.

Other famous Dekes

• Melvil Dewey, Sigma - devised the Dewey Decimal System
• Charles A. Ellis, Gamma Phi - designed the Golden Gate Bridge
• Robert E. Peary, Theta - first man to reach the North Pole
• Alan Bean, Omega Chi - Apollo astronaut

Active chapters

1) Phi - Yale

2) Zeta - Princeton

3) Sigma - Amherst

4) Gamma[1] (http://www.gammadke.com/) - Vanderbilt

5) Psi - Alabama

6) Chi - Mississippi

7) Beta - UNC

8) Kappa - Miami

9) Lambda[2] (http://www.lambdadke.org/) - Kenyon

10) Eta - Virginia

11) Alpha Alpha - Middlebury

12) Omicron[3] (http://www.umdke.com/) - Michigan

13) Rho[4] (http://ww2.lafayette.edu/~dke/) - Lafayette

14) Tau - Hamilton

15) Mu - Colgate

16) Beta Phi[5] (http://www.cif.rochester.edu/~dke/) - Rochester

17) Zeta Zeta - LSU

18) Phi Chi - Rutgers

19) Gamma Phi[6] (http://people.brynmawr.edu/clorah/DKEmain.htm) - Wesleyan

20) Beta Chi[7] (http://www.bxdeke.org/index2.php) - Case Western

21) Delta Chi - Cornell

22) Delta Delta[8] (http://dke.uchicago.edu) - Chicago

23) Phi Gamma[9] (http://www.phigamma.com/) - Syracuse

24) Theta Zeta - Berkeley

25) Phi Epsilon[10] (http://www.mndke.com/) - Minnesota

26) Sigma Tau - MIT

27) Theta Chi - Union College

28) Tau Lambda - Tulane

29) Alpha Phi - Toronto

30) Delta Kappa - Pennsylvania

31) Sigma Rho[11] (http://dke.stanford.edu/) - Stanford

32) Rho Delta - Wisconsin

33) Kappa Epsilon - Washington

34) Omega Chi[12] (http://www.texasdekes.com/) - Texas

35) Alpha Tau[13] (http://www.dkemb.org/) - Manitoba

36) Delta Phi[14] (http://www.dke.ca/index2.htm) - Alberta

37) Phi Alpha[15] (http://www.ubc-dke.org/) - British Columbia

38) Tau Delta - Sewanee

39) Psi Delta[16] (http://www.wfu.edu/Student-organizations/dke/) - Wake Forest University

40) Sigma Alpha[17] (http://www.dke.org.vt.edu/) - Virginia Tech

41) Phi Delta[18] (http://www.dke.ca/phidelta/) - Western Ontario

42) Alpha Mu - Rowan

43) Epsilon Rho[19] (http://www.duke.edu/web/dke/) - Duke

44) Nu Zeta[20] (http://www.dke-nz.org/) - Pace

45) Zeta Epsilon[21] (http://www.davisdke.cjb.net/) - UC, Davis

46) Phi Sigma - Bryant

47) Phi Rho[22] (http://www.greeks.psu.edu/ifc/dke/) - Penn State

48) Chi Rho[23] (http://orgs.bloomu.edu/dke/) - Bloomsburg

49) Zeta Chi[24] (http://www.dkezx.com/) - Bentley

50) Sigma Beta - UC, Santa Barbara

51) Beta Gamma[25] (http://www.dkenyu.com/) - NYU

52) Alpha Beta - DePaul

53) Sigma Kappa - Michigan State

54) Delta Tau - Ohio State

55) Delta Psi[26] (http://www.indiana.edu/~dke/) - Indiana

56) Mu Chi - Maryville

57) Upsilon Omega - South Alabama

58) Kappa Omega - Lake Forest

59) Rho Beta[27] (http://www.richmonddke.com/) - Richmond

60) Phi Beta - Stephen F. Austin

For a complete list of all historical chapters, see DKE's Chapter Website (http://www.dke.org/S1a.htm).

External links and references

• DKE history (http://www.dke.ca/dke_hist.htm)
• DKE Organization Home Page (http://www.dke.org)
• DKE Chapters in Canada (http://www.dke.ca)

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