Gamma Alpha - Origin and Mission

Origin and Mission

The Society was founded in 1899 as the Gamma Alpha Graduate Scientific Fraternity in Ithaca, NY by graduate students in the biological sciences at Cornell University. Its purpose was an interdisciplinary one with respect to the sciences: to stimulate “mutual interest” among graduate students from “the various scientific departments of Cornell University.” In time, it expanded to more than a dozen chapters across the country and boasted a membership of “more than 10,000 men.”

In 1963, it formally changed its name to the Gamma Alpha Graduate Scientific Society, in part to further differentiate itself from undergraduate fraternities. Originally, the Society was a scientific fraternity exclusively for men, but local chapters (such as Missouri’s) admitted women by 1968. Other chapter houses (Chicago, Cornell and Ohio) began to admit women and students in disciplines other than the sciences in 1972, with the rest (Ann Arbor) following suit the following year. Currently, the University of Illinois is the only local chapter that remains an all male fraternity. Although the makeup of the organization has thus changed greatly since its inception, it is still dedicated to promoting an interdisciplinary fellowship among graduate students, in large part through its cooperative living arrangements. Its motto remains Γνωθι την 'Αληθειαν (Know the truth).

The significance of Gamma Alpha’s motto as well as the symbolism of its insignia used to be revealed to new members in their initiation ceremony. After presenting the candidates with their certificates of membership, the president of the chapter would inform them that:

The letters ΓΑ denote our motto: Gnothe ten Aletheian – KNOW THE TRUTH. The wings and star on our Society Emblem, which all of you are now entitled to wear, signify PROGRESS and ATTAINMENT. The four notches in that Emblem commemorate the four original Chapters: CORNELL, JOHNS HOPKINS, CHICAGO, AND DARTMOUTH.

Nowadays, however, the Society has no such initiation ceremony, though the motto and insignia have been retained. Most ceremonies of this sort—another would be the singing of the fraternity’s song at the end of chapter meetings—appear to have been dropped with the organization’s metamorphosis from a fraternity into a type of fraternal, co-ed cooperative.