Friday, September 11, 2009
New Website
Take a look around our brand new website. There will be plenty more to come to keep checking back to see what's new!
Fall Rush 2009
Fall Rush is right around the corner ladies and gentlemen! This year fall rush will start on September 21th with meet the greeks in the University of West Florida Conference Center. For more information on rush please click here.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Fall Rush Information
Fall Rush will fall on Monday September 21th in the conference center at 7:00pm. Food and beverages will be available to anyone interested in rushing. In order to rush you will need to print and fill out a Fraternity Fall Rush Application and turn it into the Greek Affairs office upstairs in the commons. Here are our rush events for this fall 2009 semester.
Monday: Meet the Greeks @ 7:00pm in the Conference Center
Tuesday: Shrimp Boil @ 7:00pm. Meet in front of the commons by 6:45pm
Wednesday: Handcuff Bowling @ 8:30pm. Meet in front of the commons by 8:15pm.
Thursday: Water Balloon Fight @ 7:00pm. Meet in front of the commons by 6:45pm.
Friday: Bid Night
If you need any further information on rush, please contact me.
Friday, Septemeber 11, 2009
Remembering 9/11
Author: Wynn Smiley, ATO Chief Executive Officer
Among brothers, September 11 had a significant and exclusive meaning for 136 years. And then there was 9/11. No doubt, September 11 was still a significant date for ATO but its exclusivity evaporated that sunny Tuesday morning in 2001. We are now eight years away from the planes crashing and the twin towers falling and everyone wondering when the next attack was going to hit. In her recent column, writer Peggy Noonan interviewed college students who, at the time of the attack, were 10 to 14 years old. As she says, old enough to know evil happened that day but still in childhood. Those youngsters then are in college today, 6,500 of them are our undergraduate brothers. Their exclusive September 11th memory was that of the attack. It wasn’t until they pledged and read their Green Book did 9/11 also mean September 11.
Across the board Noonan was told by the kids of 2001 that they felt their protective “bubble” burst…that, for the first time, in an instant, they understood the world was not the safe place they had believed it to be. The students she talked with recalled how they were told about the attack in their classrooms, how parents immediately started picking up their children and how they sat glued to the television for the next few days watching the endless loop of the attack and aftermath. Those students told her they never talk about 9/11 among peers. It doesn’t come up, or if it does, there is no conversation about it. Just a knowing pause.
Remembering 9/11 and its impact while celebrating ATO’s 144th anniversary seem to be events on opposite ends of some universal continuum. There is a bit of mental friction thinking about the Founders and the reason for ATO, recognizing true merit wherever found on the anniversary of 9/11. But it is also September 11. Glazebrook, Marshall and Ross recognized that recognizing true merit, promoting eternal and immutable principles and standing up for good over evil were desperately needed to help the country heal its wounds. Even though it would be 15 years before the Creed was put to paper, the thoughts and hopes uppermost in the minds of the founders were focused on how to heal a nation. Eight years after the worst attack on American soil, recognizing true merit wherever found will not replace the sense of the burst bubble but it will reinforce the power of Brotherhood and remind all of us that the Founders knew what they were talking about 144 years before 9/11/09.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
New Ato Chapters
Ball State University - SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!
University of Michigan
University of North Dakota
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
Friday, Septemeber 18, 2009
Taus honored in the Order of Omega
2009 marks a milestone for the National Order of Omega. The organization is celebrating its 50th year as a leadership honor society for fraternity and sorority members.
Order of Omega was founded at the University of Miami in 1959 by a group of outstanding fraternity men who felt that individuals in the Greek community should be recognized for their service to the fraternity system and the university.
Order of Omega’s purpose is to recognize fraternity men and women who have attained a high standard of scholarship and leadership in interfraternal activities, to encourage them to continue along this line, and inspire others to strive for similar conspicuous attainment. It unites outstanding fraternity men and women to help create an atmosphere where ideas and issues can be discussed openly across Greek lines and to help work out solutions.
Since its humble beginnings, Order of Omega has chartered over 500 Chapters throughout the United States and Canada; initiated over 200,000 members; and awarded over $800,000 through its Scholarship, Fellowship, and Outstanding Chapter Award Programs.
Congratulations to these members of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity for their achievement in becoming members of the Order of Omega!