Undergraduate Chapter
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Marietta Delts Community Involvement
In the spring and fall semesters of 2007, the 45 Delts completed 2,679 (59.5 hours per man) hours of community service. The hours were compiled through help the fraternity gave to Marietta College by helping with set-up for football tailgates and other events. On top of this service, the Delts did their annual volunteer work with the City of Marietta’s Sternwheeler festival. The Delts set up and tear down the entire stage on the riverboat that showcases the acts for the weekends.
The Delts also take part in Delta Tau Delta’s national philanthropy project called Adopt-a-School. They all pledge one hour a week to the Marietta Middle School and help tutor in math and English classes, as well as the after school program. Adopt-a-School is a national program to give back to a chapter’s community. The Delts at Marietta accept this responsibility and gladly give their time and abilities to help out the Marietta community.
This year, the volunteerism has continued. Every possible Delt has been approved for Adopt-a-School and we have filled up every possible spot the middle school needs from volunteers.
The concept of volunteerism fulfills our values of Life-long Learning and Growth are Vital and Strengthening Community is Essential to Our Vitality. It is with these values that we welcome all chances to further ourselves and our communities.
For many the choice is simple, but for some, deciding whether or not to go Greek is difficult and confusing. Exploring the entire Greek community before making a decision is the best option. Each Fraternity offers something a little different, but as a whole, the Greek community brings a world of new opportunity and enhances the college experience in endless ways.
A study sponsored by the National Interfraternity Conference (NIC) and the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), and performed by the Center for Advanced Social Research at the University of Missouri-Columbia found these results in relation to Greek life involvement:
Students involved in Greek Life are more likely to stay in college.
Students involved in Greek Life perform at a higher level in the classroom.
Students involved in Greek Life have a stronger commitment to their university.
Students involved in Greek Life are more involved in their community, including civic groups, religious organizations, and volunteer activities.
Source: Sigma Phi Epsilon, Kansas Eta Chapter
Greek life also enhances the college experience in many ways. Following are just a few of the values and opportunities that involvement in the Greek community brings:
Scholarship is the basis for the entire Greek system. Fraternity and Sorority ideals stress the importance of high scholastic achievement, as learning is the primary reason students even attend college. All Greek organizations require that a minimum GPA be met both to join and to remain active as a member. Many groups organize study or tutoring groups, require specific study hours, and distribute scholastic awards.
Friendship and Brotherhood Along with Fraternity membership comes a special relationship that is not just mutual friendship, but a bond of brotherhood as well. Not only are men within a Fraternity brothers, but all affiliated men are brothers within the Greek community.
Diversity Greek life introduces its members to a very diverse group of people. Though all brothers share in a mutual bond of brotherhood and friendship, they also experience diversity within the group. In one Fraternity, members come together from across many nations, ethnic groups, backgrounds, and experiences.
Community Service Greek involvement provides numerous opportunities for participation in volunteering and community service. Service is one of the primary goals of the Greek community. Greek organizations contribute a great deal of time and money to local and national service learning projects and philanthropies each year, as these figures easily top over 100,000 hours and $3.5 million yearly.
Leadership is the greatest attribute that Greek affiliation brings. As an active member, you will be presented with numerous opportunities for leadership and gain valuable skills for use later in life: confidence, independence, communication skills, reliability, and the ability to function as an individual for the advancement of the entire group.
Social Opportunities and Networking
Contrary to popular belief, social interaction is not the sole reason for the Greek system's existence and prosperity. It is however, a vital part of the Greek experience. Greeks participate in formal and informal dances, mixers, meetings, banquets, service projects, Greek Week and/or Greek Olympics, and much more. These interactions promote meeting new and diverse people, making new friends, celebrating achievements, and very importantly, networking. The Greek community brings to each of its members an opportunity to interact and form solid and lasting relationships that will benefit them for years to come.
Honor and Tradition
It is a great honor to join the ranks of so many others that have also participated in the Greek experience. By choosing to enter into the Greek community, you are choosing not only to follow in the footsteps of many successful and prosperous Greeks before you, but to continue and add to the elite tradition that is Greek life.
Marietta Delt Alumni Association (MDAA)
What is the Marietta Delt Alumni Association?
The Marietta Delt Alumni Association was incorporated in 1968 as the Crescent Colony of Marietta, Ohio, Inc., to be Epsilon Upsilon Chapter’s House Corporation. For decades, the alumni organization was called “House Corp.” With housing provided by Marietta College and little reason to be a high-functioning organization, the House Corp. would meet only once a year, at Homecoming, and would not transact a lot of business, as there was not a lot for the organization to do. In 2013, a re-organization was undertaken. Out of that re-organization the The Marietta Delt Alumni Association was born. The organization serves as the main alumni body of Epsilon Upsilon Chapter. Membership in the MDAA is automatically granted to all members of the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter who either graduate or leave Marietta College in good standing. Membership is also granted to second-semester Senior members in the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter. And finally, membership may be granted to Delt Alumni from other Chapters who live in the Marietta area.
The MDAA is required to have at least two meetings a year: One at Homecoming and the other during the Marietta Delt Alumni Spring Weekend. In between the semi-annual meetings, the MDAA’s Executive Committee handles the organization’s affairs.
The leadership of the Marietta Delt Alumni Association is made up of officers and chairmen of special committees. In addition to the men who serve in these roles, other Marietta Delts volunteer their time and talents in service to the Fraternity through work they do for various committees.
Officers
President: Matt Dole ’01.
Vice President: Alex Nourse ‘15.
Secretary: Shawn Selby ’92.
Treasurer: Ed Baer ‘24.
Director of Alumni Activities & Affairs: Robert Gibson ’95*.
Director of Fundraising: Barrie Yochim ’90**.
Historian: Dave Broome ’88***.
Assistant Secretary: Matt Yates ‘18.
Official Photographer: Tyler Snell ’07.
*Chairman of the Alumni Activities Committee.
**Chairman of the Fundraising Committee.
***Chairman of the History Committee.
The above listed officers were elected at Homecoming 2023 and will serve until the next election at Homecoming in 2028. The Assistant Secretary and the Official Photographer serve at the pleasure of the Secretary.
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Marietta Delt Education Foundation (MDEF)
Marietta Delt Educational Foundation Board Member Ashley Wollam ’08 discusses leadership issues with Undergraduate Marietta Delts. (Photo by Chris Law ’10)
What we do
In the wake of the re-formation of the House Corporation into the Marietta Delt Alumni Association, several Marietta Delts came together and created the Marietta Delt Educational Foundation in 2014.
The MDEF is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization formed to assist the Undergraduate members of Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Delta Tau Delta with their education and leadership training through grants, scholarships and MDEF-provided programs and activities.
The Marietta Delt Educational Foundation is separate and independent of the Marietta Delt Alumni Association, but both organizations are committed partners with a common goal of helping the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter.
As a 501(c)3, annual donations to the Educational Foundation are tax deductible. This is not the case with donations to the Alumni Association. Also, the Educational Foundation can be included favorably in people’s estate plans.
The Marietta Delt Educational Foundation is comprised of a self-perpetuating Board of Directors of not more than 25 members. The MDEF’s Board of Directors meets twice a year — at Homecoming in October and during the Marietta Delt Alumni Spring Weekend in April.
Our programming
Click here to read about programming and support undertaken by the MDEF.
Officers
Chairman: Jess Raines ’96
Vice Chairman: Dr. Joshua Maxwell ’11
Secretary: Shawn Selby ’92
Treasurer: David Hood ’11
• • •
Fundraising Chair: Barrie Yochim ’90
Grants Chair: Paapa Nkrumah-Ababio ’18
Programming Chair: Dr. Cody Clemens ’13
• • •
Assistant Secretary: Robert Gibson ’95
Assistant Treasurer: Matt Heinzman ’12
• • •
Chairman Emeritus: Greg Maloof ’67
Board Members
Nick Aylward ’08
Michael Conaty ’89
Matt Dole ’01
Renee Bailey Gallagher ’84
Jon Hartshorn ’89
Jon Kitson ’06
Greg Manko ’93
Marilee Morrow
Bo Richardson ’09
Advisers
Greg Maloof ’67
Robert Ferguson ’71
Bruce Alan Miller ’70
Michael Moffitt ’91
Charley Maghes ’95
How you can support our work
Annual donations
You can include the Marietta Delt Alumni Association as part of your annual planned giving. Donations to the MDEF are tax deductible. You can control how your donations are used, or you can leave it up to the Board of Directors to decide how best to use your gift. Options include establishing or funding a scholarship or prize, or sponsoring Undergraduate Marietta Delts’ attendance at Karneas, Northern Division Conferences or other Delta Tau Delta-run programs.
Of course, one-time donations are also welcome.
To make a donation click here or contact Treasurer Matt Heinzman ’12 or Fundraising Chairman Barrie Yochim ’90.
Leave a legacy for the Chapter
The Marietta Delt Education Foundation can be part of your estate planning, providing a way for you to make a long-lasting gift to support the Chapter — and to be remembered for your generosity by generations of Marietta Delts to come.
To discuss estate-planning options, contact Fundraising Chairman Barrie Yochim ’90.
Volunteer your service
We are still looking for Delts, Delt spouses and members of the Marietta College community to serve on our Board of Directors. If that is more of a commitment than you can make, we are happy to enlist volunteers with certain talents to serve as Advisers to the Foundation. Or maybe you have certain experiences or expertise you would like to share with the Undergraduates through a program with the Foundation.
To discuss how you can be involved, contact MDEF Chairman Jess Raines ’96.
Our Heritage
History of Epsilon Upsilon Chapter at Marietta College
The Founding Marietta Delts, on the night of Nov. 23, 1968, when they initiated into Delta Tau Delta and became the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of the Fraternity.
Marietta College Dean of Men Walter Hobba, in 1966.
Click here to download the Delt Story Book and use the form below to submit your own Delt Story.
From local fraternity to national affiliation
In the spring of 1966, Marietta College Dean of Men Walter Hobba announced to the men of Marietta College that a new social fraternity was welcome to join the college’s Greek-letter community.
At this time, there were six women’s sororities and six men’s fraternities — of that total, three sorority chapters and two fraternity chapters were less than 10 years old. With nearly 2,000 undergraduates in the mid-1960s, Marietta College’s enrollment was at a record high.
Marietta Delt Photo Gallery
A group of college men who had declined to join any of the established fraternities expressed an interest in Hobba’s offer to become the seventh fraternity on campus.
From top, Beta Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Having recently returned from a conference of the National Interfraternity Council, Hobba had captured the attention of three national fraternities interested in starting a chapter at Marietta: Beta Theta Pi, Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon.
On March 7, 1966, a local fraternity was established with the intention of affiliating with a national fraternity within two years. Hobba, with the assistance of Dean of Students Merrill Patterson and College President Dr. Frank Duddy Jr., initiated 14 men.
That local fraternity took the name Beta Delta Epsilon — chosen in recognition of the three national fraternities under consideration at that time. Beta Delta Epsilon’s motto was “That all may be one.”
The initial group of 14 Marietta College men who formed Beta Delta Epsilon were Ken Kavula ’69, Tom Robinson ’69, Gregory Maloof ’67 , William Warner ’68, Peter Rosenberger ’67, Steve Newton ’66, Joseph Cohn ’69, Albert Mason ’68, David Dessen ’69, Franklin Hirsch ’69, Charles Baker ’67, Marc Kattleman ’69, Mike Rothman ’69 and Lee St. Clair ’67.
The Beta Delta Epsilon membership pin.
A house at 515 Butler St. (called the Strecker House), across from Dorothy Webster Hall became Beta Delta Epsilon’s first meeting place, but the BDE members did not live there. (The Strecker House, which later became home to the Alpha Tau Omega and Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternities, was demolished in the mid-1990s to make way for the Dyson Baudo Recreation Center.)
The Strecker House, across from Dorothy Webster, in the 1970s.
Delta Tau Delta chosen
By the autumn of 1966, the fledgling local fraternity had added several pledges, including Rob Weidenfeld ’70, Bruce Miller ’70 and Bill Havens ’69. The small but growing group interviewed potential national fraternities — and they were being interviewed in return.
Among those national fraternities was Delta Tau Delta, a large fraternity which was founded over a century earlier just 100 miles upriver from Marietta, which seemed the most serious about the men at Marietta — and the men at Marietta returned the sentiment. In February of 1967, a Crescent Colony of Delta Tau Delta was established at Marietta College, replacing the Beta Delta Epsilon local fraternity.
The Bates House, at 507 Putnam St., in the 1970s.
From the spring of 1967 into the following school year, the Delt colony continued to pledge new members — and doubled their membership by the spring of 1968. By this time, a college-owned house at 507 Putnam St. (the Bates House) had become home for the Delts; one of the first items of furniture acquired was a large salvaged study table.
In short order, academic trophies were added to the mantelpiece. At the fraternity’s biennial conference, called Karnea, in the summer of 1968 in Kansas City, the Marietta Delt Crescent Colony’s petition for Chapter status was approved. By the fall of 1968, the colony had fulfilled its requirements and was ready for installation into Delta Tau Delta.
On Saturday, November 23, 1968, the Epsilon Upsilon Chapter of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity was established at Marietta College — the Fraternity’s 101st Chapter.
507 Putnam Street in the mid-1970s.
On that night, 28 men were initiated as Marietta Delts. Among this group were recent Marietta graduates who had been members of Beta Delta Epsilon as well as Marietta College Professor of History Dr. R.L. Jones, the Chapter’s first Faculty Advisor.
Delts from nearby Chapters at Ohio University (Beta Chapter), Ohio State University (Beta Phi), University of Cincinnati (Gamma Xi), West Virginia University (Gamma Delta) and Case Western Reserve (Zeta) alternated in peforming the intstallation and initiation rituals, which were held in the domed second-floor faculty lounge of the Irvine Administration Building.
Among the Delts helping to install the Chapter and initiate the Marietta Delts was Marietta native Robert Ferguson ’71 of Gamma Xi, who later became the Marietta Delt Chapter Advisor.
Robert Hartford, president of Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity, presented the Chapter’s charter at an initiation banquet that followed at the Club Continental. A formal dance followed the banquet at the Knights of Columbus.
The Williams House, 219 Fourth Street, in 1989, with its iconic purple steps, lead-based red paint and disintegrating sandstone foundation.
In 1984, the college moved the Delts from 507 Putnam to 219 Fourth St. (the Williams House), which had just become vacant after the Marietta chapter of the Alpha Sigma Tau sorority collapsed. (Before Alpha Sigma Tau, the Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, and then earlier, the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity, called 219 Fourth St. home.)
Following a national trend in the 1990s, the Greek system at Marietta College floundered; one sorority and four fraternities chapters at Marietta closed during this time.
Marietta’s chapter of Delta Tau Delta has both struggled (facing collapse in both the early 1980s and in the late 1990s) and thrived (winning Delta Tau Delta’s top honor — the Hugh Shields Award for Chapter Excellence in 1990, 1992, 1993, 2008, 2011 and 2012). But most importantly, Marietta’s Delt chapter has survived for 45 years.
And the last shall be first
Since 1855, there have been a total of nine men’s fraternity chapters established at Marietta College; although the Delt chapter is the youngest of these, the Delts are the only one to remain in continuous operation since installation. Over 400 Marietta College men have been initiated as Delts since 1968.
Here are the national Greek-letter societies which have established chapters at Marietta College (dates are approximate):
Fraternities
Phi Gamma Delta, 1855–1859; 1878-1897
Alpha Sigma Phi, 1860-1993; 2012-present
Delta Upsilon, 1870-2007
The Marietta Delt Shelter today.
Alpha Tau Omega, 1890-1898; 1920-present
Lambda Chi Alpha, 1939-1998; 2002-present
Sigma Tau Gamma, 1952-1955
Tau Kappa Epsilon, 1959-1999
Tau Epsilon Phi, 1960-1994
Delta Tau Delta, 1968-present
Sororities
Chi Omega, 1923-present
Sigma Kappa, 1944-present
Alpha Xi Delta, 1945-present
Alpha Sigma Tau, 1960-1983
Alpha Gamma Delta, 1960-1975
Sigma Sigma Sigma, 1963-1997
Theta Pi Alpha, 2014-present (as a local sorority, Omicron Chi Theta, 2003-2014)
The Marietta Delt Chapter in 2013 shows off its Hugh Shields Award for Chapter Excellence — the highest award that Delta Tau Delta can bestow upon a Chapter. The Hugh Shields Award is a flag that a winning Chapter is allowed to keep for a year. After winning five Hugh Shields Awards, a Chapter is presented with a flag that it keep permanently. The flag on the left is the Hugh Shields Award the Chapter won for 2012. The flag on the right is for the Hugh Shields Awards the Chapter won in 1990, 1992, 1993, 2008 and 2011.