Omicron Delta Epsilon - History of ODE

History of ODE

Alan A. Brown was the founder and first President of Omicron Chi Epsilon (OCE) in 1955 while he was a student at City College of New York. Dr. Brown conceived the creation and the development of, first, a national, and then an international Honor Society in Economics. Friends and colleagues report that they were amazed watching this polite and deferring young person 'pestering' Nobel Prize winners and other giants of the economics profession to endorse, become involved in, and support this initiative, and succeeding.

The first annual meeting of ODE was held at Fordham College in New York City in the spring of 1958. Dr. Brown subsequently learned of the existence of another honor society in economics, Omicron Delta Gamma, founded in 1915 by John R. Commons, University of Wisconsin and Frank Taussig, Harvard University, which, while older and formally larger (more chapters) than Omicron Chi Epsilon, was less active than the younger OCE. Alan was the prime mover to facilitate a merger in 1963 between the two societies, renamed Omicron Delta Epsilon (ODE), adding "International" to its non-Greek name. At that point, ODE really took off. Dr. Brown was the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Omicron Delta Epsilon from its inception in 1963 until 1982.