Legacy of Zeta Psi
The Zeta Psi Fraternity was founded on June 1st, 1847 as a social college fraternity, with the Phi chapter at New York University. It was founded by three students from NYUs class of 1849; John Bradt Yates Sommers, William Henry Dayton, and John Moon Skillman. The organization now comprises over fifty active chapters and twenty-five inactive chapters, encompassing roughly fifty thousand brothers.
Zeta Psi was the first fraternity on the West Coast, following the establishment of the Iota chapter at the University of California, Berkeley June 10, 1870. It became the first fraternity in Canada with the Theta Xi chapter at the University of Toronto, March 27, 1879, and the first and only fraternity to have chapters simultaneously at all eight Ivy League schools. More recently, Zeta Psi became the first intercontinental fraternity on May 3, 2008 with the chartering of Iota Omicron at the University of Oxford.
A History of Firsts
Across The Pond
The Theta Omicron chapter in Dublin, Ireland was chartered on February 28th, 2012, becoming the first of its kind in Ireland and the third European chapter of Zeta Psi. Founded by Andrew Nagle, the chapter was named for the Theta Xi chapter at which he had spent a summer and which influenced him in bringing the fraternity system to Ireland. The chapter is unaffiliated with any university but is largely comprised of students at Trinity College Dublin.