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.