“I think we tried to do something unique," says Bill Brash '71S, a Phi Tau alumnus and coordinator of the anniversary celebration. "For our 45th anniversary, we had degree-holders from 1949, the first year a member graduated, through 1992 come back. I think that was one of the largest gatherings of alumni that has ever been held (at U of L). And here we doubled it."

The weekend's events, for Phi Tau and Lambda Chi Alpha, which is also hosting an alumni reunion, included dinner, a golf scramble, and tailgating at the Homecoming football game.

In addition to sharing an anniversary year, the two chapters share something else: they were both born amid the influx of WWII veterans which, according to former University executive vice president William Ekstrom, left a substantial mark on the Greek system.

“When I came to the University, the return of the veterans from World War II was having a great impact on the fraternity system," says Ekstrom, a Melville scholar who later became academic vice president and twice served as interim president before his retirement in 1982. "These guys had been around the world, and had seen things of a life and death nature. What was intriguing to me at the time was their great natural richness of experience, which came out in conversation and even in the bull sessions."

Ekstrom was attracted to the newly-chartered Lambda Chi chapter in 1947, and soon became its faculty adviser and later an honorary initiate.

He says other fraternities were well established by that time, including Kappa Alpha (no longer at U of L) and Delta Upsilon, but that neither had the "creative impulse" which characterized Lambda Chi and Phi Tau during those early years.

"Lambda Chi and Phi Kappa Tau really came out of almost nothing to become very large organizations," recalls Ekstrom, who still serves on the Lambda Chi housing corporation board. "Inside of a couple of years, they had 60-70 members, and before long came pretty close to 100. They really didn't change in character until the mid-60s."

In fact, Brasch, who works at U of L coordinating major building projects, says his days in the fraternity during the late 1960s and early '70s only caught the beginnings of the social unrest and anti-authoritarian impulses that brought about the end of the Greeks' glory period.

“Things get to Louisville a few years late," he says. "Things started to change in about '69, prior to that everything was very traditional."

But he says many of the aspects of fraternity life remain the same as when he and his then-future wife, Kappa Delta member Pat Linden '69A, were students.

“Greeks represent a lot of what goes on around campus socially," he says. "It's tough to have a social life on campus if you're just living in a dorm, or worse yet, living at home with your parents."

Sororities also have played a large role for students looking to get the most out of their U of L experiences over the last 75 years.

Consider Tara Singer '83A, '87G, '93G, now U of L"s assistant vice president for alumni affairs.

“It was about 11 o'clock one night and (she and a few dorm-mates) were over in the old Student Center," Singer recalls. An SGA official "saw us together and said, 'you know you have so much fun together you ought to start a sorority.' So we did."

That was 1981 and Greek Affairs Director Joni Burke was looking for another national sorority for U of L. After operating as a local sorority, the new chapter interviewed national sororities and, with Burke's office, selected Alpha Omicron Pi as its national affiliate.

In 1983, after 18 months as a colony, Omicron Pi gave its final approval for UofL's new chapter. Singer says the years spent in her sorority have resulted in cherished life-long friendships.

“I tell undergraduates now that if their time in the sorority allows them to meet one person with whom they form a life-long friendship, then they have had the kind of experience the founders of the chapter envisioned for them."

These days, U of L has 14 fraternities and 10 sororities, and one group attempting to establish another fraternity colony. Four fraternities and four sororities belong to the National Pan-Hellenic Council, an organization for traditionally-black Greek-letter groups.

John White, director of food services for Marriott at the Health Sciences Center, is an advisor to Phi Beta Sigma, a member of the Louisville NPHC chapter. White says traditionally black fraternities at U of L, as elsewhere, have a different focus than historically white fraternities.

“There are major cultural differences," he said, adding that black fraternities were founded while the country's higher education system was mostly segregated, with blacks being barred from many white colleges, and nearly all the white Greek letter groups.

Like Ekstrom, he remembers a fraternity experience from Alcorn State College in Mississippi that is different from those he sees today.

“I grew up on a college campus, and I could tell from early on that all the leaders, all the scholars, belonged to a fraternity. You just had to be part of that. It's a little bit different today. Today, some men join for the wrong reasons, I think."

Still, both Ekstrom and White say there have been some major improvements in their fraternities since earlier days.

White says hazing is not tolerated ("though you still have some knuckleheads"). Ekstrom recalls that, after the initial classes of veterans, the tone of the fraternity lost some of its seriousness.

Inevitably, he says, it became mostly a social group, with some rather wild times desperately in need of the more sober attitude taking hold in fraternities today.