History

The Gamma chapter of Delta Theta Sigma here at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, began in 1928. The group who founded it on our campus was first a chapter of Farmhouse Fraternity. In the decades to follow, DTS became home to scores, about 1500, of accomplished men and women, including Conrad Elvehjem who identified Niacin and later became president of the University.

While the location of the DTS house changed several times over the years, the ideals and friendships remained, allowing DTS to endure the second World War without closing. We moved to our current location at 252 Langdon Street in 1966.

While the National DTS fraternity is exclusively for men, women have had a long history with UW-Madison’s Gamma Chapter of DTS. Moreover, women have lived in the house at 252 Langdon St since the 1990s. Women’s involvement began as a DTS Little Sisters organization with their own officers and meetings. In the DTS membership directory the first DTS Little Sister is recorded as being initiated in 1972. The last DTS Sister in the directory was initiated in 2018. Their numbers peaked during 2010-2019 when the combined Active membership of the two groups was higher than it had been for the previous three decades. DTS Nationals was opposed to the Sisters joining as proper members of DTS. At best, they could form their own organization with no reference to DTS or use of DTS name. Since the identity of the Sisters was so closely tied with the Brothers of DTS, efforts to create a separate Sisters organization were not successful. For this reason, DTS Gamma decided to break its ties with the National DTS fraternity and to instead govern itself as a co-ed Greek fraternity unique to UW-Madison.

In Fall 2023, the Board members of the DTS Alumni Association were President Brian Koch, Vice President Greg Hansen, Treasure Jon Falk, Secretary Kenneth Offord, and Member-at-large John Brunnquell. The board conducted a vote via email with three options:

1. Stay with National DTS and partner as best we can with the new UW recruiter to recruit male CALS students as members.
2. Break from National DTS and create a new co-ed organization which is yet to be defined for CALS students.
3. Sell the house and donate the proceeds to the UW Foundation for scholarships for CALS students.

The outcome of the voting was 19%, 52% and 26% for options 1, 2, 3 respectively.

At the annual meeting of the Alumni Association on December 17, 2023, a motion was made stating: “The Alumni Board of the Gamma Chapter of Delta Theta Sigma Fraternity shall maintain the Active Gamma chapter of Delta Theta Sigma National Fraternity while it works to transition to a co-ed Greek organization made up of CALS students and reside at 252 Langdon Street in Madison. “ The motion was passed with 90% voting in favor.

There were three considerations that supported this decision. First, it was felt that in today’s world it was important for men and women to work together as equals in a single organization as preparation for real world realities. Secondly, both Brothers and Sisters who lived in the house when the Little Sisters had a vibrant presence were enthusiastic supporters of this approach. Lastly, the number of members during this time support this option as noted in the following table (based on the DTS Brothers and Little Sisters Alumni directory).

It is with this context that the Gamma Chapter of DTS at UW-Madison became Alpha Pi in 2024.

We are encouraging freshman, sophomore and junior men and women enrolled in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) to become members of Alpha Pi, a co-ed fraternity, and live in the house at 252 Langdon Street. We are offering 10 Housing Credit Scholarships each for $3,000 for those CALS men and women who live in the house and become members of Alpha Pi. Additional scholarships are available. See scholarships section for details.

The insignia was designed by artist Lydia J. L. Bushey from Wasilla, Alaska in 2024.

The insignia captures the cornerstones of the organization. Central is the study of agriculture depicted by the numerous representations from the plant and animal kingdoms which reflects on our members being undergraduate students in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. These representations feed into the knowledge base, the book, for which students come to further their professional educational experience. That we are a coed organization working to foster an environment of leaders cooperating to address the needs of the world is further illustrated with the line drawings of a man and a woman.

That our history is DTS is depicted by two features. First is the cornucopia at the top which was our DTS fraternity pin. The second is the chemical structure of niacin which was discovered by Conrad Elvehjem in 1938. He was one our earliest alumni and played a key role in the transition from Farm House to DTS circa 1921. He had numerous accomplishments and went on to become president of UW Madison in 1958.