AOII History

(Founders top left clockwise: Elizabeth Heywood Wyman, Helen St. Clair Mullan, Jessie Wallace Hughan and Stella George Stern Perry. Barnard Library)

The Founding Story

The following is the story of our founding from an excerpt of a letter by Stella written to the Ohio Valley Convention in 1939.

"We were exceedingly frank and merry, very much alive to enjoy the golden years we were living, vitally interested in every phase of our college life, and in the life around us, mentally inquisitive and ardently, enthusiastically devoted to one another, to our chosen group of friends, and to the class of '98.

Why...did we four choose...to make a new fraternity of our own - surely a...dangerous and difficult task? I will try to tell you.
In those days many of the evils still sometimes complained of in fraternity life... were distinctly obvious in the already existing societies. I do not mean to imply for a moment that they were known to be in all of them, or even that we believed them to exist in all. But they certainly were pretty general. And how to be sure?

We knew exactly what we wanted and the way to be sure of getting it was to make it, if we could. We wanted a society that should continue our companionship through life, and extend the like joys to others, usefully, unselfishly, and without pettiness.

We wanted to be sure of a democratic fraternity, democratic in choosing embers, democratic in internal government, so that all members to come must share our responsibility and feel bound to exercise for themselves the motives that impelled the founders.

We especially wanted no snobbery, no ostentation, no extravagance, no silly "superiorities", no trivial limitations, nothing based only on "society" in the narrow sense, nothing good excluded on financial, religious, or other factitious grounds, one with it's members chosen for character.

Above all, we wanted a high and active special purpose to justify existence, a simple devotion to some worthy end. Therefore, having decided to make that sort of fraternity if we could, we had also to decide, "What have we in our hearts to give that the world most lacks and most needs? And in what aspect of it is it most lacking and most needing?"

One of the first decisions we made was to have one emblem only and that a direct reminder of our essential purpose. We felt that synthetic coats of arms, shields, sub-mottoes, and what not...were undignified in comparison with one austere, though rich, badge. And we felt that, by avoiding this foolish conformity we could from the start indicate our determined simplicity. We wanted a badge that told us why we wore it.

Our first step in expansion, which made us "national" was the installation of the Pi Chapter in New Orleans. Pi chapter's ideals and reasons for the courageous course of joining a brand-new fraternity were the same as ours in founding it. Only three girls were pledged to begin the new chapter, of these, two were out of town during an epidemic, when the day of installation came only Katherine was initiated.

Thus Alpha Omicron Pi started with four members and became national through the installation of one. We are told, we believe, and we have proved that in that which makes our bond is promise certain of success. Let us follow our ensign devotedly, utterly and bravely. For our purpose cannot fail."

Stella G.S. Perry