Theta Nu Epsilon (, commonly known as T.N.E.) is a sophomore class society. Founded at Wesleyan University in 1870 as a chapter of Skull and Bones, the society accepts members regardless of their fraternity status.
Early history
Theta Nu Epsilon was founded on December 11, 1870 in Room Seven of Wesleyan’s South College by Herbert Hull Coston, Coleridge Allen Hart, George Washington Shonk, Lyman Horace Weeks, (all four Alpha Delta Phi), Benjamin Emmons Gerst, Arthur Collins McClay, George Bickford Davey Toy, (all four Delta Kappa Epsilon), Stephen Judson Kirby, George Henry Towle, Alfred Charles True, (all four Eclectic), George William Elliott, Charles Hamlin Furber, William Henry Lawrence, Olin Levings Livesey, (all four Psi Upsilon), Amos Howard Hoagland, (independent). Founded as the Wesleyan chapter of Skull & Bones, two years later the chapter cut its ties to Yale and changed the bones of the Skull & Bones emblem to keys.
Class societies were once common in northeastern American colleges and universities. There were freshman, sophomore, junior and senior class societies. Membership was by class year, and cut across the fraternity membership lines. Some class societies became fraternities outside the northeast; DKE and Alpha Sigma Phi were founded as class societies. Yale's Skull & Bones, Cornell's Quill and Dagger, and Theta Nu Epsilon were probably the most famous and successful class societies.
T.N.E. is a sophomore class society, and in a traditional type chapter, members were chosen near the end of their freshman or start of their sophomore year. Once selected, the new members were active and responsible for operation of the chapter during their sophomore year. As juniors and seniors, they were considered honorary members and only had authority in an advisory role. The society always excluded freshmen. From the beginning, the identities of the sophomore members were kept secret. In yearbooks, the names of the sophomores appeared in code. The Alpha chapter and legitimate chapters continue this traditional type. Several latter types of chapters developed over time: one type is that of the three-year society, adopted by chapters at many institutions without a class society system, a third type was as a feeder organization to a senior society, a fourth type was where the chapter acted as an interfraternity coordinating body, and a fifth type was as a wholly secret society, (which were usually chapters that had notorious reputations, such as the University of Alabama).
National organization
Theta Nu Epsilon had immediate success at Wesleyan, and it grew rapidly and spread throughout colleges across the United States. The Alpha chapter at Wesleyan acted as the national organization and continued to grant charters until 1907. The society's first convention was at the Delevan House hotel in Albany in 1885, and conventions were held annually thereafter. A movement for a formal national organization resulted in a convention was held at the Hotel Astor in New York on March 29 and 30, 1907. The convention established a national governing body which was incorporated the society under the laws of the State of New York. The new national organization was given the authority to manage the national operations of TNE and grant new chapters.
Internal struggles
As early as the turn of the century, there were chapters created informally and without official sanction, especially in the South. The new national organization attempted to unify all chapters of the society, but the process proceeded slowly. Some illicit chapters became very problematic for the society. Several of these chapters were banned from campuses, and many fraternities prohibited members from accepting membership in the society. These events negatively affected the reputation of the society.
Also, because of internal differences in the society, in the 1910s, many of the older legitimate chapters reorganized themselves as independent organizations which were loosely allied across campuses.
In 1913, the National Interfraternity Conference (predecessor to the current North American Interfraternity Conference) officially announced its opposition to T.N.E. and recommended to the fraternities represented in the conference that they forbid their members to join Theta Nu Epsilon The relations between Theta Nu Epsilon and the N.I.C. improved and the N.I.C. retracted its opposition at its session in New York, 1925. Theta Nu Epsilon was later accepted as a member of the N.I.C. in the 1930s.