Alert
(U.S.) Memorial Day Office Closing
The Fraternity, Theta Foundation, and Fraternity Housing Corporation offices will be closed Friday, May 27, and Monday, May 30, in recognition of the (U.S.) Memorial Day holiday.
The Fraternity, Theta Foundation, and Fraternity Housing Corporation offices will be closed Friday, May 27, and Monday, May 30, in recognition of the (U.S.) Memorial Day holiday.
Category: Heritage
Alpha Chi, Purdue
06/26/2017
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I run across something I worked on a long time ago that causes a bit of an epiphany. Late last year, I found a report I had written back in June 1997 about some of the cataloging I was doing for the Q & A database Theta was using at that time to manage the collection. While I chuckled at the thought of that old database and how far we have come, what stunned me was that I have been at Theta for almost two decades!
Yet it truly seems like only yesterday. I arrived here at Theta headquarters with almost no knowledge of Kappa Alpha Theta or of the Greek-letter world because I was not involved in Greek-letter organizations during college. I did, however, have a college friend who was; I knew how much it meant to her; and I was also keenly interested in the history of not-for-profit groups, particularly women’s organizations. In many ways, their important stories have not always been shared, and I wanted to do what I could to make it easier to find those stories. As I discovered then, and still do every day I work in the collection, there are many Theta stories just waiting to be told.
So, what has happened over the last 20 years? First, I have learned about the important role Kappa Alpha Theta has played in the lives of more than 240,000 college-educated women for 147 years. Second, I have had many opportunities to share these stories: of the founders with our members today, of a specific Theta with her family, of Theta’s accomplishments with a larger community. Third, I have met my counterparts in other Greek-letter organizations around the country and have seen how they, too, are working on their archives and sharing that information to their members. Finally, I was welcomed into membership in 2008 as an alumna initiate of Kappa Alpha Theta.
I still enter my office on the lower level of Fraternity headquarters each day and wonder what interesting stories I will be considering, documenting, or sharing. You can’t ask for a better job than one that keeps you on your toes and allows you to learn something new daily! Thanks to that and a great staff to work with, I look forward to each day.
As an archivist, you sometimes become fixated on the past; around here, however, you never know what will be coming at you in the future. That’s why 20 years has flown by.