University of Illinois Fraternity Chapter History Project 

Delta Zeta House, 810 South Third St, circa 1929

In May 2000, the Student Life and Culture Archival Program and the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing (SPGH) initiated a fraternity chapter history project to document the rich heritage of the University of Illinois Greek system.  

Funded by the Society and administered by the Archives, the project's goal is to complete chapter histories for each social fraternity and sorority on the University of Illinois campus -- both active and defunct. As of summer 2007, research assistants have completed eleven histories.

The Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing exists to preserve and document the unique architecture and historical significance of fraternal housing structures on the campus of the University of Illinois and beyond and to document the formation and contributions of the Greek fraternal system locally and at other select campuses.

Alpha Tau Omega- Gamma Zeta Chapter History

Thomas Arkle Clark, the first Dean of Men at University of Illinois, circa 1930s

As part of the ongoing UI Fraternity Chapter History Project, Kate Meehan Pedrotty, graduate student in the History Department, is currently writing a history of Gamma Zeta chapter of Alpha Tau Omega as part of the Greek Housing History Project, inaugurated by the Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing and the University of Illinois Archives in 2000.  Gamma Zeta of ATO was founded on the Illinois campus in 1895 and its first initiate, Thomas Arkle Clark, looms large in both ATO and University of Illinois history – he was the University’s, and the nation’s, first Dean of Men.  With a continuous presence on the Illinois campus for more than one hundred years, Gamma Zeta’s history provides a fascinating illumination of the changes that have occurred in not only college and Greek life but also American society as a whole from the late nineteenth through the early twenty-first centuries.  The history draws on the extensive collection of archival materials available in the University of Illinois archives, including chapter newsletters, minutes, annual reports, and photographs, as well as interviews with Gamma Zeta alumni from many different time periods.