Continuing the Legacy
In 1897, Barnard College was all but a brownstone at 343 Madison Avenue. It was the College’s sixth year of life, and the first generation of Barnard students had recently graduated “on trial” from Columbia University and New York City as a whole. They had to be the perfect women and students, constrained to the ideas of society at the time. They were forced to be careful, dutiful, scholastic, and “ladylike.”
Class of ‘98 was not. They were the first class of the modern college girl, the first cohort to enter the College after high school, and aspiring intellects in Manhattan not only looking for higher education but also for college life and all the zest of youthful associations (we get it).
Four women in that cohort––Jessie, Bess, Stella, and Helen––wanted to be in the same collegiate association. However, that was impossible since, at the time, Jewish students were barred from joining fraternities. Their solution? Charter a new one.
Left to right: Jessie, Bess, Stella, Helen
And so, Alpha Omicron Pi was born. Alpha Chapter is doused in that very same love the Founders had for one another. In 1931, Stella wrote:
In a word, Love moved us; and whatever success we have, all of us shared in AOII, you and your Founders equally, is due to the fact that Loves moves to, for, and in itself where there is no failure. We didn’t plan a mighty organization. But we did hope for one that should be free from narrowness and selfishness that should be a help, not a hazard to the social life of our schools and responsibility to its members forever… Alpha Omicron Pi may never forsake the ideals of democracy, simplicity and forbearing friendship for which it stands; and above all that its motto may be ever before us. You are all founders now, a much as we were then. Love one another!
That early January, the Founders welcomed their first initiates into the fraternity. These were women with vibrant humor and vitality, women with ambitious intellectual passion, women who knew that Love never faileth, women who took the initiative to carve their own path and become the leaders they wanted to see.
These were early collegiate women with high spirits and ambition never imagined by the first generation of Barnard students. Today, these women are our predecessors, our foundation, and our inspiration. These women were Alpha Chapter, and today we are continuing the legacy.
The first class of initiates proceeding down Low Steps.
However 16 years after its founding, Barnard suspended all fraternities on campus. One hundred years later, Alpha Chapter was reinstated. As Columbia undergraduate colleges became more inclusive, so did Alpha Chapter. We are proud to represent all four undergraduate colleges at Columbia University after reinstallation. <3
Fraternity History
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With the founding of the Beta Tau chapter at the University of Toronto in 1930, AOII became an international fraternity. Today we have over 125 chapters across the United States and Canada. To think that this all started from four women at Columbia University.
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In 1946, the Ruby Fund was created to help members who were unable to financially support their membership. This emergency assistance program still persists today.
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AOII was founded on the basis of inclusion of Jewish women. Despite the Founder’s desires for their own inclusion, there is a significant history of racial segregation and discrimination that must be faced as we move forward. In 1956 at Idaho State University, Fannielee “Margaret” Lowe Harris was the first black woman to be initiated into an AOII chapter.
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Learn more about recruitment here.
