Pi Alpha Tau

Pi Alpha Tau (ΠΑΤ) sorority was a national, Jewish women's fraternity operating in the United States between, approximately, 1917 and 1950.

Pi Alpha Tau
ΠΑΤ
FoundedOctober 1918 (1918-10)
Hunter College, New York
TypeSocial
AffiliationIndependent
EmphasisJewish
ScopeNational (US)
Member badge
SymbolNine stars, a Tower
Chapters12
Merger?scattered
Headquarters
US
This article is about the Jewish women's fraternity. For the historic rhetoric honor society, see Phi Alpha Tau

History

Pi Alpha Tau sorority was established for Jewish women at Hunter College, a unit of the City University of New York.[1] The exact founding date of the sorority is uncertain: The Oracle of Adelphi College (1937) gave the date as 1917, while the 1929 edition of The Oracle gives it as October 1918; Baird's Manual of American College Fraternities, 14th Ed., (1940), claimed 1918; a handwritten summary of the sorority, written by national president Harriet Brown, stated formation was in 1919. Regardless, Pi Alpha Tau grew slowly and steadily into a national organization.

According to the 1937 Oracle, a group of girls created the new sorority on the Hunter College campus, remarking, "Sorority life was so congenial and agreeable to these modern pioneers that their associates in other college[s] were encouraged to follow the Greek letter path."[2] ΠΑΤ established chapters at schools in the New York City metropolitan area, soon in Albany, and by 1924 opened its first chapter outside of the state, in New Jersey.

Further expansion outside of the New York area brought chapters at Cincinnati and Wisconsin, eventually marking a total of 12 chapters, all within the US.

The Great Depression, WWII, and, ironically, gradual Jewish integration into non-Jewish national organizations took its toll: By 1950, Pi Alpha Tau ceased to operate as a national.[3] Circumstances of its dissolution are unknown; three chapters appear to have survived into the 1950s. The two youngest chapters, Lambda at CUNY, Brooklyn and Mu at Syracuse withdrew by 1957 or earlier to operate as locals, later creating a 2-chapter sorority called Sigma Tau Delta; they opted to merge into Alpha Sigma Tau in 1960. The Alpha chapter survived as a de facto local for over a decade, still under the name Pi Alpha Tau, opting to become a chapter of Sigma Delta Tau in 1960.[lower-alpha 1]

Traditions

According to Harriet Brown, "[The] Sorority conforms with the set rushing rules of the college but deviates in the initiation ceremonies." First, there was an informal pledge ceremony, where the "new girls" attended a party and were "allowed to submit their sorors [~sisters] to all sorts of tests." Then came the formal pledge ceremony, which lasted for six weeks "during which time the new members must submit to the wishes of the older sorors."[4]

Initiation occurred as a "formal installation ceremony, which takes place bi-annually, in December and in May, is presided over by the President of the Grand Council of Pi Alpha Tau".[5]

The convention formal was held annually on Christmas Eve.[5]

The sorority's values, to be inferred from the Oracle article, were "high standards of scholarship and fraternity".[3]

Insignia

The pledge pin was a diamond divided in half horizontally into two equilateral triangles. The top half being dark colored, the bottom light colored.[6]

The membership badge was a black enamel shield surrounded by jewels. The Greek letters, in gold, were inscribed vertically on the shield. A jewel was between the enamel and the surrounding jewel photo.[7]

Chapter List

Baird's listed most of these chapters in the 12th ed., (1930), supplemented by information from the Baird's Manual Online Archive. There was no national merger into a successor organization, but some chapters withdrew to local status or joined another national. These are noted in bold; chapters that had gone dormant by 1950 are shown in italics.[8]

Name Chartered Institution Location Status Notes Reference
Alpha October 1918–1960 Hunter College New York, NY Withdrew (ΣΔΤ) Became Alpha Sigma chapter of ΣΔΤ [9]
Beta 1920–192x ? New York University New York, NY Dormant [9]
Gamma December 1918–1938 Adelphi College Garden City, Long Island, NY Dormant [9]
Delta [lower-alpha 2] 1920–192x ? St. Lawrence University's Brooklyn Law School Brooklyn, NY Dormant [9][2][lower-alpha 2]
Epsilon 1925–1942 University at Albany, SUNY[lower-alpha 3] Albany, NY Dormant [9][2][lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 3]
Zeta 1924–19xx ? Rutgers Law School[lower-alpha 5] Newark, NJ Dormant [8][9][lower-alpha 5]
Eta 1927–1941 University of Cincinnati Cincinnati, OH Dormant [10]
Theta 1929–193x ? LIU Brooklyn[lower-alpha 6] Brooklyn, NY Dormant [lower-alpha 6]
Iota 1929–1933 University of Wisconsin–Madison Madison, WI Dormant
Kappa 1929–19xx ? St. John's University (NY) Queens, NY Dormant
Lambda 1930–1957 CUNY, Brooklyn College Brooklyn, NY Withdrew (ΣΤΔ) Became Alpha Omega chapter of ΑΣΤ [lower-alpha 7][lower-alpha 1]
Mu 1930–1957 Syracuse University Syracuse, NY Withdrew (ΣΤΔ) Became Alpha Iota chapter of ΑΣΤ [lower-alpha 8][lower-alpha 1]

See also

Notes
  1. Note the order of these three letters. Sigma Tau Delta was NOT the larger Jewish sorority named Sigma Delta Tau.
  2. While the Adelphi Oracle yearbook of 1929 notes the Delta chapter at St. Lawrence University, it wasn't shown in the St. Lawrence yearbooks. The matter is clarified by the 1937 edition of the Oracle, showing the group was actually located at St. Lawrence's Brooklyn Law School, in Brooklyn, NY. The law school separated from St. Lawrence in 1943 and now operates independently.
  3. Until 1961 the school was known as SUNY College of Education at Albany
  4. Epsilon chapter originated in 1923 as a colony or local.
  5. Until 1946 and its merger into Rutgers, this school was named the New Jersey Law College.
  6. The school was named Long Island University during the time it hosted a chapter of ΠΑΤ. After several name changes it was finally renamed LIU Brooklyn in 2012.
  7. The Lambda chapter may have left ΠΑΤ soon after 1950, but Baird's pegs this at 1957. After operating for some years as a local named Sigma Tau Delta, became the Alpha Omega chapter of Alpha Sigma Tau in 1960.
  8. Baird's 12th edition notes a group of this name on the campus in 1950. It may have left ΠΑΤ soon after 1950, but Baird's pegs this at 1957. It had been formed the year prior as Pi Alpha Mu (local), in 1949, but the naming convention clearly suggests a plan that it become the Mu chapter of ΠΑΤ. Few, if any of the other chapters of Pi Alpha Tau were in existence at this time: likely only CUNY Hunter College and CUNY Brooklyn College. Soon after the dissolution of that small national, this group would become a chapter - maybe the Beta chapter? of a 2-chapter group called ΣΤΔ. In 1960 it followed the CUNY, Brooklyn College group in merging into Alpha Sigma Tau, becoming its Alpha Iota chapter.

References
  1. Sanua, (p.14 & p.317)
  2. Oracle yearbook. Garden City, Long Island, New York: Adelphi Junior Class. 1937. p. 89. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  3. Sanua p.89
  4. Harriet Brown's handwritten history
  5. Brown
  6. photo, The 1931 Badger, p. 385
  7. The Album 1924, p. 92
  8. William Raimond Baird; Carroll Lurding (eds.). "Almanac of Fraternities and Sororities (Baird's Manual Online Archive), section showing inactive women's fraternities". Student Life and Culture Archives. University of Illinois: University of Illinois Archives. Retrieved 28 Apr 2021. The main archive URL is The Baird's Manual Online Archive homepage.
  9. The first six chapters are noted in the Adelphi Oracle yearbook of 1929, pp.130-131, as is the founding date of Gamma chapter, accessed 22 November 2021.
  10. University of Cincinnati Sororities

Further reading
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