St. Anthony Hall

St. Anthony Hall, also Saint Anthony Hall, is a national college society, formerly known by the Greek name of Delta Psi (ΔΨ). Founded at Columbia University on January 17, 1847--The feast day of St. Anthony--its patron saint is Anthony of Egypt, patron saint of writers. The organization is often referred to as "St. A's" or "the Hall."

General information

The organization was founded on January 17, 1847 at Columbia University. In the late 1960s, it became the one of the first fraternal organizations to accept women as members, though three of the chapters—at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Mississippi—remain all-male, either by choice or campus policy. Other chapters of the fraternity include the following schools: Columbia University, Trinity College, Princeton University, Brown University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At each school, the fraternity maintains a house referred to as "The Hall", although at MIT, the fraternity is known as "The Number Six Club" in reference to that chapter's original founding and residence at No. 6 Louisburg Square in Boston's Beacon Hill neighborhood.

St. Anthony Hall began as a fraternity dedicated to the love of education and the well-being of its members. Chapters were soon founded throughout the Northeast, and extended into the South during the mid-1800s. Unfortunately, during the Civil War, contact was lost with the Southern chapters. Many members wore their badges into battle, serving with distinction on both sides, and were often reunited in both pleasant and antagonistic situations throughout the war. After the War, some Southern chapters rejoined the national organization, while still more were founded in the South.

Similarly, members of the order took part in both World War I and World War II. Many members died, and the fraternity faced crises during each of these conflicts. St. Anthony Hall continued to prosper, however, in their aftermath.

Membership

Each chapter of St. Anthony Hall maintains a distinctive range of membership. A few chapters are publicly known on their campuses as "co-ed literary fraternities," hosting public literary events, while others are predominantly social in nature. As with any national fraternity, the various chapters exhibit diverse characters with regard to campus presence, secrecy, exclusivity, and literary emphasis.

Controversies

Like any fraternity, St. Anthony Hall has been the subject of various suspicions and rumors. The secretive and often exclusive nature of the members at some chapters invites speculation. For example, St. A's is rumored to have connections to the Bavarian Illuminati, but the Illuminati is extinct.

The "St. Ray's" fraternity in Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons is purportedly modeled after the Delta chapter of St. Anthony Hall—"St. A's"—at the University of Pennsylvania where Wolfe attended a fraternity cocktail party while researching for the book in 2001. [1]

Exclusions

The St. Anthony Hall society at Yale University is now independent and maintains only a loose affiliation with the national organization. The Delta Psi fraternity at the University of Vermont was founded separately and is completely unrelated.