The Middletown Chapter was granted its charter at the 1856 annual convention of the Alpha Delt Phi Fraternity. Two competing Wesleyan debating societies, the Betrians and the Lebanians, had both petitioned the fraternity, each one unaware of the other’s interest. Neither group had a sufficient number of supporters to obtain a charter, so a debate ensued until someone proposed that the two societies unite and accept the charter together. This motion passed, and on July 31st, 1856, the Middletown Chapter became the eighteenth chapter of Alpha Delta Phi.
Our first chapter house was built on our current lot in 1884. Only twenty years later, that house was demolished to make way for a second house, completed in 1906. The new house was home to 21
students, and is the main section of the house that still stands today.
In 1972, two years after Wesleyan University’s own co-education, Alpha Delta Phi began renting rooms in the chapter house to women. It took only a few months for the new boarders to become thoroughly integrated into life at Alpha Delt. After six months, the brothers invited the women to pledge, and in 1973 Middletown Alpha Delta Phi initiated its first co-educational pledge class. We’ve never looked back.
The other chapters of the Fraternity, however, had other ideas. While several other Alpha Delta chapters had co-educated, the majority of the brothers were opposed to female members. The Middletown chapter was instrumental in the fight for co-education that would continue for the next twenty years, culminating in the separation of the co-ed chapters into the Alpha Delta Phi Society. Click here for a brief history of the Fraternity and Society, and here for links to the other chapters’ web pages.
For more information about the Middletown chapter’s history, check out the Wesleyan Alpha Delta Phi Archives here and here.