Throughout winter quarter of the 2010-2011 school year, Alex Staebler, Arshitha Vaidhyanathan, and Jonathan Wong considered the idea of creating a legacy at the University of California, Irvine for future engineers. After some discussion, it was decided that the networking and professional development opportunities offered through existing clubs, fraternities, and sororities were lacking, especially for a campus as large as UC Irvine.

Around that time, Alex stumbled upon Theta Tau while looking for ways to improve professional development at UC Irvine. March 22, 2011 marks the day Alex reached out to Theta Tau’s Central Office to explore the possibilities of establishing Theta Tau at UC Irvine. Michael Abraham responded promptly and after a few days of correspondence, it was determined that Alex, Arshitha, and Jonathan would persuade and inspire nine other UC Irvine engineers to join in on the vision they had for a legacy at UC Irvine.

The next Monday, during the first week of Spring quarter, the first meeting was held between the founding fathers. March 28, 2011 established that Alex, Arshitha, and Jonathan were not the only ones who had heard of Theta Tau and had a vision for a professional development organization at UC Irvine. Sarah Leung, sister to Alan Leung (a founder of UC San Diego’s Epsilon Delta chapter) reassured the founders that it was possible to build a colony of Theta Tau at UC Irvine and that Theta Tau represented something that we all were looking for.

Michael Abraham was contacted and UCI Theta Tau was referred to Vinay Reddy for the purpose of setting up an informational meeting with the founding class. During dinner on April 15, 2011, the founding class was solidified into the 12 Founders, all of whom share the same vision for the establishment of a Theta Tau colony at UC Irvine. The 12 Founders instated were: Alex Staebler, Clever Tan, Jonathan Wong, Jacqueline Kim, Sarah Leung, Terence Leung, Amy Nguyen, Arshitha Vaidhyanathan, Christopher Louie, Dhivya Sridhar, Jeffrey Go, and Jonathan Turcios.

On April 23, 2011, Vinay Reddy, Alex Ma, Steven Choi, and Xander White visited UCI Theta Tau and met with the founding class. After a lengthy lunch and an informational meeting, the founding class was more inspired than ever to establish Theta Tau at UC Irvine and begin the process of becoming a colony.

The following Monday, the first official meeting occurred. Elections were held and officers were chosen. To this day, the Founding fathers have worked vigorously to write the Constitution and design a pledge process. Their first rush is to occur during Fall quarter of 2011 and the success of their work is yet to be discovered.

Theta Tau Fraternity was founded in 1904 by four engineering students at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. As defined by the fraternity, the purpose of Theta Tau is to develop and maintain a high standard of professional interest among its members, and to unite them in a strong bond of fraternal fellowship. The goals of the fraternity are to promote the social and professional development of its members during and after their college years. Today, Theta Tau is the oldest and largest professional engineering fraternity in the United States, with a diverse membership of men and women studying engineering at more than 40 campuses.

The Fraternity was founded as the “Society of Hammer and Tongs” on October 15, 1904, by Erich Julius Schrader, Elwin Leroy Vinal, William Murray Lewis, and Isaac Baker Hanks. The Fraternity’s principal founder, Erich Schrader, dreamed of establishing an engineering fraternity similar to those already existing in law, medicine, and dentistry. The name was changed to Theta Tau at the fraternity’s first national convention at the University of Minnesota in 1911. Since then, approximately 30,000 members have been initiated.