The Tau Beta
Pi Association, national engineering honor society, was founded at Lehigh
University in 1885 by Dr. Edward Higginson Williams, Jr., “to mark in a
fitting manner those who have conferred honor upon their Alma Mater by
distinguished scholarship and exemplary character as undergraduates in
engineering, or by their attainments as alumni in the field of engineering,
and to foster a spirit of liberal culture in engineering colleges.”—Preamble
to the Constitution.
An honor society is
an association of primarily collegiate members and chapters whose purposes
are to encourage and recognize superior scholarship and/or leadership achievement
either in broad fields of education or in departmental fields at either
undergraduate or graduate levels.
The honor society
has followed the expansion and specialization of higher education in America.
When Phi Beta Kappa was organized in 1776 no thought was given to its proper
“field,” since all colleges then in existence were for the training of
men for “the service of the church and state.” With the expansion
of education into new fields, a choice had to be made, and the society
elected to operate in the field of liberal arts and sciences. Although
this was not finally voted until 1898, the trend was evident years earlier,
and 1885 saw the establishment of Tau Beta Pi.
Founder Edward H.
Williams, Jr., was born at Proctorsville, Vermont, on September 30, 1849;
he died at Woodstock, Vermont, on November 2, 1933. A member of Phi
Beta Kappa, he was head of the mining department of Lehigh University when
he determined to offer technical men as good a chance of recognition for
superior scholarship in their field as that afforded by the other society
in the liberal arts and sciences.
Working alone he conceived
an organization, gave it a name, designed its governmental structure, drew
up its constitution, prepared its badge and certificate, established its
membership requirements, and planned all the necessary details for its
operation including the granting of chapters and the holding of conventions.
Thus, with only a
paper organization, he offered membership to qualified graduates of Lehigh
and received their acceptances and enthusiastic endorsement. Late
in the spring of 1885 he invited the valedictorian of the senior class,
Irving Andrew Heikes, to membership and he accepted, becoming the first
student member of Tau Beta Pi; but there was no time to initiate
the rest of the eligible men from the class of 1885.
Mr. Heikes returned
for graduate work, however, and in the fall of 1885, he, Dr. Williams,
and two alumni who had earlier accepted membership, initiated the eligible
men from the class of 1886 and organized the chapter. The parent
chapter, Alpha of Pennsylvania, existed alone until 1892 when Alpha of
Michigan was founded at Michigan State University. A detailed account of
the founding and early history of Tau Beta Pi was written by Edwin S. Stackhouse,
Pennsylvania Alpha ’86, after years of painstaking research work.
Records of essential dates were lost, but Mr. Stackouse deduced that June
15, 1885, was the day on which the first undergraduate student was initiated.
Subsequent evidence, in the form of Mr. Heikes’ original invitation to
membership, discovered in 1943, confirmed this date.
Since the founding
of Michigan Alpha chapter, Tau Beta Pi has grown steadily; there
are now collegiate chapters at 220 institutions, chartered alumnus chapters
in 59 cities, and a total initiated membership of 423,324 (as of July 31,
1998).
The Association was
incorporated under the laws of Tennessee on December 1, 1947. The
official name of the society is The Tau Beta Pi Association, Incorporated.
It is a not-for-profit, educational organization with no stock-issuing
power. Its assets are held in its corporate name or in trust.
The Association is classified under Section 501 (c) (3) (not private) of
the United States Internal Revenue Code, and gifts and bequests to it are
tax deductible.
Tau Beta Pi is a founding
member of the Association of College Honor Societies, and association member
of the American Society for Engineering Education, an associate member
of the American Association of Engineering Societies, and an affiliate
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Junior
Engineering Technical Society.
The official badge
of the Association is a watch key in the form of the bent 
of
a trestle, engraved on the reverse side with the member’s name, chapter,
and class. The colors of the Association are seal brown and white.
The official quarterly magazine is THE BENT of Tau Beta Pi. The name
of the Association, its badge, and the title of its magazine are registered
in the United States Patent Office.
The word key describes
the insignia of many organizations. It comes from the fact that it
was first designed, in the late eighteenth century, to include a pocketwatch
winding feature, hence key. The bottom stem, added to the basic insignia,
had a tapered square hole fitting the common sizes of watch-winding shafts.
The top stem and ring were added so that the key could be worn as a pendant
from a chain, rather than as a pin or badge, thus easily used to wind watches.
When the “stem-winder” watch was introduced in the late nineteenth century,
it replaced the key-winder. But the insignia key remained, although
with a vestigial hole now round for manufacturing ease and economy.
The national headquarters
of Tau Beta Pi are located on the campus of The University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, Tennessee, and have been there since R. C. Matthews went to
the University as a young instructor in 1907. R. C. Matthews served
as Tau Beta Pi’s Secretary from 1905 to 1912 and as Secretary-Treasurer
from 1912 until his retirement in 1947. Before he assumed office
in 1905 the headquarters offices had been moved to wherever the offices
of the Secretary were located. Professor Matthews’ long service to
Tau Beta Pi and the University of Tennessee has made the university the
permanent headquarters of the Association. In 1963, the headquarters
staff moved into a suite of offices designed specifically for Tau Beta
Pi in the then-new Nathan W. Dougherty Engineering Building.
-Excerpt from Information about Tau Beta Pi-1999
Merger with
Sigma Tau
On January 1, 1974, the Sigma
Tau Fraternity merged into The Tau Beta Pi Association. The action was
taken by the collegiate chapters of the two organizations following lengthy
study and recommendation by their Councils. Sigma Tau was founded in 1904
at the University of Nebraska as an engineering honor society. At the time
of merger, it had 34 collegiate chapters and a total initiated membership
of 45,000. The basis of merger was the conviction that a single, strong
honor society would better serve the engineering profession.
The resulting organization
is Tau Beta Pi, unchanged in name, purpose, governance, operating procedures,
and membership requirements (except for the automatic Tau Beta Pi membership
eligibility of all Sigma Tau members).
The 22 Sigma Tau chapters
at institutions formerly without Tau Beta Pi chapters began functioning
under Tau Beta Pi rules on January 1, 1974, and were converted to chapters
of the Association in formal ceremonies on the dates shown in the roster
of chartered collegiate chapters following. The 12 Sigma Tau chapters co-existing
on campuses with Tau Beta Pi were merged into the Association, by initiation
of their active members in early 1974. The national headquarters office
of Sigma Tau in Lincoln, Nebraska, was closed on June 30, 1974, and its
records were transferred to the national headquarters of Tau Beta Pi in
Knoxville, Tennessee.
Under terms of the merger
plan, the financial assets of the Sigma Tau fraternity were used in meeting
the costs of converting and merging its chapters, of giving its initiated
active members all the insignia and materials regularly going to new members
of Tau Beta Pi, and of extending all paid Sigma Tau magazine (The Pyramid)
subscriptions to subscriptions to Tau Beta Pi's magazine (THE BENT). The
Sigma Tau Foundation, Inc., was dissolved and its assets were transferred
directly to Tau Beta Pi's Fellowship Fund. There, the invested sum will
earn a return to assist in providing an annual Tau Beta Pi-Sigma Tau fellowship
under the Association's regular graduate-study award program.
Under terms of the merger
plan, all Sigma Tau alumni have been offered membership in Tau Beta Pi
at the current national initiation-fee charge. Those who choose not
to join the Association will have all Sigma Tau membership services (except
for The Pyramid, which has been discontinued) available to them through
the Tau Beta Pi national headquarters.
The last national officers
of the Sigma Tau Fraternity were: President G. W. Forman, Vice President
H. H. Bartel, Jr., Secretary-Treasurer J. P. Colbert, and Councillors C.
W. Leihy, R. P. Moser, R. E. Peterson, and J. W. Straight
-Excerpt from Information about Tau Beta Pi-1999
