Tau Kappa Epsilon at a Glance
Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity was founded on January 10th, 1899 at Illinois Wesleyan University with chapters in the USA, and Canada, and affiliation with a German fraternity system known as the Corps of the Weinheimer Senioren Convent (WSC). With 266 active TKE chapters and colonies throughout the United States and Canada, and more than 245 thousand initiated members, TKE is the largest college social fraternity in terms of number of active groups. The colors of the fraternity are the shade of cherry known as crimson lake, and the shade of gray known as pure silver. Of the national fraternities founded prior to 1920, TKE is one of the few fraternities that never had a discrimination clause in its membership requirements to prevent membership of men because of their race, color, or creed. TKE was also one of the first fraternities to abolish “Hell week” when in 1928 it was replaced with an initiation period consisting of lessons portraying the finest attributes of brotherhood.
