Although secret societies were banned from campus in the early 1910s, certain groups continued to organize and meet, giving rising to the first campus fraternities and sororities.
Members of the Afternoon Tea Girls (photo) are pictured gathering for a meeting, they became Kappa Alpha Theta sorority. Another group, first known as “The Night Owls” became Beta Phi after the Oklahoma Board of Agriculture approved the societies in 1916.
Kappa Alpha Theta sorority opened the first sorority house with eleven women in the fall of 1918 (pictured). The first social fraternity for men, Delta Sigma, was founded in 1908 and rented a home on Elm Street as a chapter house.
Despite the approval of legitimate organizations, secret societies continued to form with one called Theta Nu Epsilon especially active on campus starting in the 1920s. Years later, alumnus Paul Miller, a nationally recognized journalist and former student leader, reminisced aloud about his own involvement in TNE while receiving an award from OSU.