Alpha Tau Omega

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Contents 1 Brief history of Alpha Tau Omega: 2 Creed of Alpha Tau Omega: 3 To find out more about Alpha Tau Omega visit: 4 Alpha Tau Omega facts:

Brief history of Alpha Tau Omega:

Alpha Tau Omega was founded by three cadets at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. ATO was the first fraternity created immediately after the Civil War in 1865 with the primary purpose of reuniting the North and South among college men. The Fraternity’s founders believed their effort would be successful only if members lived by Judeo-Christian principles upon which the Fraternity is based. Today, Alpha Tau Omega is considered America’s Leadership Development Fraternity, we have over 140,000 living alumni and more than 6,500 undergraduate members in over 140 chapters across the nation. These men have chosen to be brothers by choice based on their merits as men of character.

-Excerpt from http://www.joinato.org

Founded By: Otis Allan Glazebrook, Alfred Marshall, and Erskine Mayo Ross

Creed of Alpha Tau Omega:

To bind men together in a brotherhood based upon eternal and immutable principles, with a bond as strong as right itself, and as lasting as humanity; to know no north, no south, no east, no west, but to know man as man, to teach that true men the world over should stand together and contend for supremacy of good over evil; to teach not politics, but morals; to foster not partisanship, but the recognition of true merit wherever found; to have no narrower limits within which to work together for the elevation of man than the outlines of the world; these were the thoughts and hopes uppermost in the minds of the founders of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity.

-Otis Allan Glazebrook, 1880

To find out more about Alpha Tau Omega visit:

http://www.ato.org

http://www.joinato.org

http://www.atoroadshow.org

Alpha Tau Omega facts:

• First Fraternity founded after the Civil War
  
• First Fraternity to recharter a chapter as alcohol free
  
• Was not founded in opposition to any existing Fraternity
  
• Created the Leadershape program in 1986
  
• Has a strict no hazing policy
  
• Fraternity national headquarters located in Indianapolis, Indiana

• The ATO Badge was designed by Otis Allan Glazebrook in 1865 and is worn by the initiate. The badge is based on the Southern Cross of Honor - a medal given to Confederate soldiers after the civil war.
  
• The Grand Seal was painted in 1872 by VMI Arts Instructor Richard N. Burke.
  
• The White Tea Rose became the ATO Flower in 1892.
  
• The Coat of Arms was redesigned and approved by committee in 1910.
  
• The ATO Flag was designed by William C. Smiley and approved in 1914.
  
• Colors: Azure Blue, Kelly Green, White, and Old Gold.
  
• Nickname: Taus, Alpha Taus, ATOs
  

-Taken from http://www.ato.org/nat/hist_factsfirsts.shtml The ATO national website's information page.