102 Years of Tau Epsilon Phi

To the Mem­ber­ship of Tau Epsi­lon Phi,

As quoted by Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Sid­ney S. Sun­tag (who served our fra­ter­nity from 1946–1979) in The His­tory of Tau Epsi­lon Phi, 102 years ago today “eight men in all, met dur­ing the lunch hour on Octo­ber 10, 1910 in a deserted lec­ture hall and sealed their amal­ga­ma­tion as a fra­ter­nity. Time was short dur­ing this lunch-hour meet­ing for any real progress to be made and the eight men agreed to meet at 5 o’clock that same after­noon in Cen­tral Park, at the foot of West 68th Street, a favorite for Col­lege of Phar­macy Stu­dents”. While this day was the first offi­cial meet­ing of these eight (8) men, they agreed to meet the fol­low­ing week with the entire group of Found­ing Fathers. There­fore, after receiv­ing per­mis­sion from the Chair­man of the Prop­erty Com­mit­tee, the entire group of Found­ing Fathers met for the first offi­cial meet­ing on Octo­ber 17, 1910 in the Col­lege library.

While we cel­e­brate the first meet­ing of the fra­ter­nity on this spe­cial and his­toric day, we ask you to take a moment to reflect on what TEP has meant to you dur­ing your time in col­lege and the place it remains with each of you as you con­tinue through life. Please keep this mem­ory in your mind as you con­tinue to read below.

Since our incep­tion this orga­ni­za­tion has ini­ti­ated more than 45,000 mem­bers from 135 chap­ters across the United States and Canada. Through­out our his­tory, TEP has pro­vided count­less sto­ries that will be told and re-told over and over again recount­ing those days at the chap­ter and the fra­ter­nity house. TEP has cre­ated life­long friend­ships and last­ing mem­o­ries that will be cel­e­brated at wed­dings and at funer­als.

While each one of you have your own story and expe­ri­ences of your under­grad­u­ate days in the fra­ter­nity, we all share a com­mon bond of broth­er­hood in Tau Epsi­lon Phi both as a mem­ber of a local chap­ter and of a national orga­ni­za­tion. And when you think your days in col­lege, many of you will imme­di­ately quote the last sen­tence of our Creed…“To Prac­tice each day, friendship—chivalry—service, thus keep­ing true to these—the three ideals of the founders of our Fraternity—this is the Creed of Tau Epsi­lon Phi.

Last year, our orga­ni­za­tion had a time where the Creed and the name Tau Epsi­lon Phi were almost silenced for­ever. Led by a pas­sion­ate group of vol­un­teers com­mit­ted to the ulti­mate goal of ensur­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion of the fra­ter­nity, I am proud to inform you that the orga­ni­za­tion is back on a pos­i­tive path to the future. For the first time in our his­tory, we have a full func­tion­ing National Web­site (www.tep.org), we have under­grad­u­ates excited and pas­sion­ate to be a mem­ber of TEP and have oppor­tu­ni­ties for Expan­sion to new Col­leges and Uni­ver­si­ties. And to wel­come back Alumni, we have orga­nized Alumni Events in seven (7) cities through the Meet and Greet Series. And with the numer­ous accom­plish­ments too many to note, please under­stand and appre­ci­ate that these efforts have been due to the efforts by a 100% vol­un­teer group, our twenty-two (22) mem­bers of our Grand Coun­cil.

Due to this his­toric week which begins today and con­cludes on the 17th, in honor of cel­e­brat­ing TEP and wel­com­ing you back to the orga­ni­za­tion, we will be post­ing spe­cific and tar­geted requests and needs of you, our TEP Alumni and var­i­ous accom­plish­ments we wish to share. Please take a moment to read and spend a moment to respond. We would greatly appre­ci­ate it!

Again, please think of TEP today and cel­e­brate with me in wish­ing Tau Epsi­lon Phi a Happy 102nd Birth­day Week. On behalf of our entire orga­ni­za­tion, we thank you again for your mem­ber­ship in Tau Epsi­lon Phi

Fra­ter­nally,

Lane B. Koplon
Inter­na­tional Con­sul
Tau Epsi­lon Phi Fra­ter­nity