Welcome to the Alden Room!
Milne Library's Alden Room is the home of many treasures that document the history of the College and student life beginning with the College's foundation as the Oneonta Normal School in 1889. The room is named in honor of Jessica Alden, the first librarian at the Oneonta Normal School. Yearbooks, newspapers, and other student publications as well as photographs, scrapbooks, office and department documents, sorority pins and other memorabilia, and a biography file comprise the archives.
In addition, there is an extensive lantern slide collection as well as numerous special book collections: New York State histories, Faculty Publications, Masters Theses, Early Textbooks, O'Mara Native American Collection, New York State Verse, Cornell-Gladstone-Hanlon-Kaufmann Collection, Popular Fiction, Private Press Publications, and Special Collections Miscellanies.
All of these materials are available for you to research or browse. If you have any questions or are interested in learning more about a particular topic or collection, simply contact Heather Stalter or Sophia Donne, Special Collections Team co-leaders.
You can also learn more by checking out the Special Collections Guide.
LIS Graduate Student
SUNY Oneonta Greek Life
Greek letter organizations have been present on SUNY Oneonta's campus since the 1890s. Groups that started out as social clubs or literary societies later added Greek letters to their organizations and formed the first fraternities and sororities at SUNY Oneonta. Due to this interesting start, some of the organizations still present today are known both by their Greek letters and the original society name; Alpha Kappa Phi is also the Agonian Sorority and Sigma Gamma Phi is Arethusa. Other organizations that helped found Greek life at SUNY Oneonta died out in the early 1900s; the Delphic Fraternity, the Philalethean Fraternity and the Clionian Sorority.
Organizations have come and gone, but they all leave their mark in SUNY Oneonta history.
To view these photos and more than one hundred others, visit the new SUNY Oneonta Greek Life digital archive collection on the NY Heritage website. A statewide archival initiative dedicated to preserving New York State History.
You can also see all these photos and more in the Alden Room on the 3rd floor of Milne Library.
Photographs Introduction
The photos below are a small collection, showcasing organizations that were present on SUNY Oneonta's campus during the mid-late 1900s. Some of these organizations such as Iota Tau Kappa, Alpha Kappa Phi (Agonian), Sigma Gamma Phi (Arethusa), Pi Delta Chi, and Alpha Phi Omega still have active chapters. The others, Delta Phi Kappa, Gamma Sigma Sigma, Alpha Sigma Beta, and Sigma Tau Alpha are no longer present on SUNY Oneonta's campus.
Greek Groups
Pi Delta Chi outside the Copper Fox - 1980s
Iota Tau Kappa circa 1970s
Agonian Clubroom in Old Main
Alpha Kappa Phi on porch
Arethusa 1902
Pi Delta Chi on porch
Iota Tau Kappa in basement
Pi Delta Chi pre-1990s
Alpha Sigma Beta
Alpha Kappa Phi
Arethusa 1901
Gamma Sigma Sigma
Arethusa/Sigma Gamma Phi
Iota Tau Kappa
Sigma Tau Alpha
Alpha Sigma Beta
Agonian Sorority 1893
Gamma Sigma Sigma
Sigma Tau Alpha in basement
Arethusa 1905
Alpha Phi Omega Service Fraternity
Delta Phi Kappa
