110 E. Armory
Alpha Zeta Delta was formed at the University of Illinois on 25 May 1912 from a petitioning body known as the Tau Lambda Fraternity which had, in turn, been preceded by the Lambs Club, originated by H. A. Bestor. That this organization eventually became Alpha Zeta Delta of Chi Psi was not an afterthought, for Bestor, knowing something of Chi Psi ideals from Chi Psi friends, had Chi Psi as a goal from the beginning, and all throughout the evolution of the group, this goal remained fixed.
The Lambs Club, founded in 1906, was short lived. By the close of the year, June 1907, a small group headed by Bestor and A. O. Dady had decided that the club arrangements were neither satisfactory nor the membership wholly congenial. It was determined to abandon the club and form a local fraternity.
So Tau Lambda came into being. Bestor was again the guiding spirit, and the members of the new organization, profiting by the previous experience, built up their personnel slowly and carefully. The men that were recruited had strong scholarship
and were well represented in the University clubs and organizations. Within three years after careful recruitment efforts the Tau Lambda fraternity had become one of the strongest and most respected groups on campus. Some of the men in this group became very active in Chi Psi well after their college careers were over. The members of Tau Lambda had developed into what they believed was a group of men suitable to represent Chi Psi on the University of Illinois campus. So they applied at the 68th Chi Psi Convention in Milwaukee for charter as an Alpha. Unfortunately their petition was refused that year, and for the next two consecutive years. But this adversity did not weaken the determination of the men at Illinois. They continued to excel at the University, becoming a group that had members in all aspects of college activity, which topped the lists in scholastic achievement and a a group of forty-two involved alumni to add to the twenty-seven undergraduates on campus. The group also owned furnishings and a prime piece of real estate for a complete Lodge.
The strength of this group must have been apparent to the men at the 71st Convention in Boston, for they granted a charter to Tau Lambda and incorporated it as Alpha Zeta Delta. That 25th of May, the twenty-eight actives and twenty-two alumni were initiated into the bonds of brotherhood in Chicago. The success of the group petitioning in 1912 was due in part to the Brothers at Alpha Epsilon Delta namely Howell W. Murray '14 and Ernest R. Reichmann '14, and the board of the Chicago Alumni Association.
The initiation, which was held at the University Club of Chicago, no doubt made a deep impression on the men involved and become one of the most memorable events in their lives. The new initiates received greetings and congratulations from all across the cou ntry, which made it apparent to them that they were truly welcome in the fraternity. The following semester was a strong one for the new Alpha, and with the help of Brothers from other Alphas they were able to gather a group of ten very strong pledges. They remained strong scholastically placing second on a list of thirty fraternities, and they were very involved in campus activities. The men also had a growing building fund which would soon contain enough to allow construction of a Lodge. The men moved into a house near the new building site in order to be near their future home.
In the year following 1913 there was a gradual slump in the activity of the Lodgers. This was the result of the prosperity of the previous years. This slump soon ended because in 1915 a fund raising campaign resulted in enough funds to commence building of a Lodge in the fall of 1917. The outbreak of World War I, however, halted the construction plans, and brought the Alpha to the brink of dormancy. The building once occupied by the Brothers was taken over by an Army unit and almost every Brother and alumnus from Alpha Zeta Delta headed off to the battlefields of Europe. The young Alpha had the unfortunate honor of having the first man killed in France: Brother Geuennaur, a medical officer on the combat front. Four other men died in the World War from Alpha Zeta Delta, a large casualty total from a group of men that had only been a chapter for six years. The casualty total was the highest of any fraternity at the University of Illinois. But Alpha Zeta Delta has the honor of having the only Flying Ace produced by the University. The men of Zeta Delta are proud of this war record.
The return of many seasoned men from war gave the Alpha a chance to regain its strength. In 1920, Chi Psi became one of the top fraternities at Illinois, having three of seventeen members of the junior honor society.
The following year Chi Psi received the Sachem Trophy, an award from the university for scholastic achievement. The years from 1920 to 1923 marked a rebirth of the Chi Psi Alpha at Illinois, during which the men won trophies in many sports and contests with other organizations. But the crowning achievement of these years was the final construction of a permanent Lodge. The building cost almost twice the estimated price before the war, but the final product became a model fraternity house. With an average capacity of forty-two men, it was one of the most spacious buildings of its kind on campus. The building, with a large porch facing Washington park in Champaign, was in a prime location on campus. After building of the new Lodge, the Brothers once again relaxed some and enjoyed their status on campus. Although nothing detrimental happened at this time, the men did not sustain the high reputation their predecessors had achieved in the fraternity system. However, near the end of the twenties the Alpha was able to acquire a new group of strong men. The Alpha regained its foothold on campus and at the Chi Psi Convention in 1932 was awarded the Thayer Trophy as the most outstanding Alpha in Chi Psi. The Alpha celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1937 in relatively strong fashion, even though competition was formidable. The number of fraternities at this time numbered almost one hundred, decreasing the number of available rushees for each chapter. The finances were strong during this time and the Brothers bought a plot of land north of the Lodge and renovated the second floor of the Lodge.
In 1940 the number of fraternities dropped to fifty-nine and even though Alpha Zeta Delta survived this abatement it did so with a decrease in membership and activity on campus.
In January the Brothers were approached by Chi Beta, a local fraternity on the University campus. Chi Beta had been founded in 1906 and during its life had become the best local fraternity on campus. Several national fraternities had approached Chi Beta about affiliation, but its members had never shown interest in becoming a national organization. So when the group approached the Alpha and Alumni Corporation board, the Brothers were surprised but they accepted the offer. On 1 June 1940, sixty-three alumni and twenty-two actives of Chi Beta were formally initiated into the brotherhood of Chi Psi, including four father-and-son groups. The following fall's Homecoming Weekend, 26 October 1940, saw the initiation of another group of twenty-two Chi Beta alumni. The merger brought a diverse group of men into the Lodge and helped boost the morale and rush of the Alpha.
The next few years were good to Alpha Zeta Delta, but in the end of 1943, the Lodge lost many men to the onset of World War II. In February of 1944, an Army group took over the Lodge because there were only 11 Chi Psis on campus. The number decreased to only six by May, and the Alpha was only able to initiate one man that term. By the summer the number of Chi Psis on campus was reduced to only four, and by the fall the Alpha was inactive. With no men on campus the alumni corporation rented the Lodge out to women and was able to keep the Lodge in good shape because it possessed enough funds. The ratio of men to women at the University of Illinois at this time was one man for every woman, a number that kept fraternity activity pretty much at a standstill. Although some fraternities had enough men on campus to keep their kitchens open, many were in a situation similar to that of Chi Psi.
In the fall of 1945, the Lodge was once again occupied with Brothers, a group of men who found themselves in the same situation as their predecessors from twenty-five years earlier. It took some time for the men to resume their involvement on campus, but by the onset of the fifties, they were beginning their resurgence. In 1953 Alpha Zeta Delta once again won the Thayer Trophy, but this time it had to share the honor with Alpha Beta Delta and Alpha Epsilon Delta. The Brothers also won the Goodbody Trophy for scholastic excellence three years in a row, from 1951 to 1953. Their scholastic strength was also rewarded on campus during these years because Alpha Zeta Delta was a finalist for the Sachem trophy every year. The Brothers were also involved on campus and held many leadership positions in university organizations. Brother Ralph Fessenden '55 was the quarter mile champion of the Big Illiniwek, the university mascot. But the peak accomplishment during these years was the holding of the 111th Convention in Champaign, which indicated to the national fraternity that Alpha Zeta Delta was one of the strongest Alphas around.
At the threshold of the sixties, Alpha Zeta Delta was at a moderate level in achievement. However, strong emphasis on involvement and rush allowed another peak in the Alpha's history. A powerful rush in the fall of 1961 produced twenty-three pledges, four of whom were football players on scholarship and a number of whom were managers of campus sports teams. Campus involvement had reached one of its highest levels in the Alpha's history, and scholarship put Chi Psi among the top five fraternities on campus, including professional societies. Chi Psi's pledge classes during this time were some of the largest on campus, despite the fact that campus fraternity rush overall declined in size. The prosperity of the Lodge continued into the late sixties, when membership and involvement dropped again.
The seventies had its high and lows for the men of Chi Psi, which was affected by the Vietnam War and an increase in popularity of illegal drugs on campus. Scholarship has seemed to fluctuate through the years, but generally the Alpha has remained around the all men's average. However, Alpha Zeta Delta was a finalist for the Goodbody Trophy in 1977. The late eighties and early nineties were tumultuous for Chi Psi at Illinois.
The University generally had a watchful eye on the activities of the Greek system on campus, in part because it is the largest in the world, represented by nearly every national fraternity and sorority. Newspaper articles asserted that fraternity males statistically drank more than independent males and that fraternity men participated in acquaintance rape more than other men. These assertions helped to develop a fairly strong anti-Greek sentiment on the campus. These changes in attitudes led to stricter University regulations regarding alcohol and hazing. While many universities kept Greek life in their peripheral vision, at Illinois the control became much greater. With such a large number of houses on campus and a negatively biased administration, the number of men rushing declined significantly. The fraternities began to focus more on self-policing to alleviate administration pressure and regain a positive reputation on campus but not before many houses were weakened significantly, in some cases even folding entirely. Alpha Zeta Delta was enjoying a moderate prosperity in the early and middle eighties, but Chi Psi at Illinois was not beyond the effects of declining fraternity membership across the campus. From a peak of over fifty members on campus in 1987, membership steadily fell over the next five years to only twelve men in 1992. The financial strains of low membership were compounded with the increasing cost of maintaining the seventy year old Lodge. Higher insurance costs, rapid deterioration of the Lodge building, and looming renovation costs due to a more rigorous interpretation of old fire codes by the city of Champaign quickly depleted the Alpha's resources.
In the spring of 1993 the insurance carrier for the Lodge issued an ultimatum to the Alumni Corporation to either make an exhaustive set of specific physical changes to the building or face cancellation of coverage. Unable to afford these changes without a time-consuming fundraising campaign, the Alumni Corporation board had no choice but to evict the brothers from the uninsurable property. Scattered in apartments across campus, the Alpha struggled to hold together in the 1993-94 school year with the seven remaining brothers. Only one new brother was initiated that year, in the midst of a raging blizzard at the Alpha Epsilon Delta Lodge in Evanston.
While the Alpha continued to operate at Illinois,
the Lodge had sadly become a financial burden. So, in January of 1994, the Lodge which had been home to generations of Chi Psis at Illinois was sold to a local developer and torn down to make room for a luxury apartment complex. The sale of the Lodge which had held such significance in the lives of so many Chi Psis fittingly enabled the establishment of a new legacy that will hold a different significance in the lives of many future Chi Psis. The proceeds of the sale of the Lodge were given to the Alpha Zeta Delta of Chi Psi Educational Foundation to be applied towards promoting scholarship among the Brothers at Illinois. This endowment, at well over half a million dollars in value and growing, is one of the largest such endowments of any single chapter of any fraternity. The Foundation has since given tens of thousands of dollars every year in scholarships, fellowships, and grants for books and computers to the Brothers of Alpha Zeta Delta. 
By 1994, the Alpha had rented a large house in Urbana to serve as a Lodge. Only one year later, the seven brothers had grown to twelve and the Alpha moved into a larger home nearby. By 1996, the Alpha had risen to the top of all fraternities in scholastics, thanks in part to the renewed focus on education fostered by the Foundation programs. Once again, this time only two years in their latest Lodge, the Alpha had again outgrown its home, and the brothers moved back into a full-size fraternity house in Champaign for the 1997-98 school year, occupying the former Alpha Chi Rho house on Armory Street. After only 2 years of living in 311 East Armory, the Alpha again showed the remarkable growth and potential that was becoming its hallmark. The 1999-2000 school year saw the Initiation of 18 Brothers, doubling the size of the Alpha in that timespan. In addition, a renewed interest in Campus activities was fostered, as the Lodgers became more and more involved in the University. This growth didn’t go unnoticed, as Alpha Zeta Delta won the Founders Trophy for the most improved Alpha for that year at the 2000 National Convention. Building on that success, the Alpha then managed to recruit another 14 Brothers in the next year, bringing the total number of active Brothers to well over 40 (a remarkable achievement considering that membership had been down to 8 Brothers less than a decade before).
The year 2001 brought another challenge to the Brotherhood that it has certainly been willing to meet and overcome. After another solid Fall Rush, netting 10 men, the Alpha was informed that Alpha Chi Rho was returning to campus the following Fall, taking their house back and leaving the Brotherhood with the very real possibility of being homeless again. However due to some luck and some ambitious Alumni, a suitable property at 108-110 Armory Street was found. It is the Delta Sigma Phi house, who were removed from Campus in the year 2000. Located less than two blocks from the location of the original Lodge that so many called home during their college careers, the alumni and actives are doing everything in their power to purchase the property and call it their own, giving Alpha Zeta Delta a permanent home once again.
