Our brotherhood is built on a foundation that has flourished for almost 200 years nationally and for over 160 years here at Rensselaer. The traditions of Delta Phi have instilled a common bond in brothers from year to year. While our traditions have been modified and updated to fit the times, the pillars of brotherhood, morality and literature handed down from our founders have endured and still guide our brothers from their time at university for their entire lives. We believe they apply to our brothers every day.
The Delta Phi national and our chapter here at RPI are purposefully smaller than some other fraternities. We want to maintain an environment where everybody has the chance to know each other and build lifelong friendships.
We want our brothers to be well-rounded, and to understand the value of giving back to their community. As alumni, we try to teach by example. Our top priority is investing in the futures of our undergraduate brothers: sharing our knowledge and experience; providing guidance during their years at Rensselaer; the substantial financial investment we have made in the Academy; and helping to support our undergrads’ involvement in the school-based clubs they participate in on campus. We encourage our undergraduates to join in projects that benefit the local community. The Prospect Park area of the city has been made better by the presence and involvement of our chapter and our Greek neighbor across Congress Street, Phi Sigma Kappa.
Lambda has had a rich tradition of developing future community and world leaders and innovators – scientists, engineers and educators who have been at the forefront of every new era of technology. Sixteen buildings and structures on campus have been named after Delta Phis. Four of our brothers are members of the RPI Hall of Fame.
Our ranks include:
3 RPI Presidents
Livingston Houston
Brother Houston was appointed the 14th President of RPI in 1943. “Liver’ was captain of the varsity basketball and tennis teams during his undergraduate years at RPI. He graduated with a mechanical engineering degree in 1913 and after distinguished service in the U.S. Army during WWI, he joined Ludlow Valve Company, where he eventually became President and Chairman of the Board. In 1925, he became the youngest person ever elected as a trustee of Rensselaer. He went on the serve as President and Chairman of the Board of the school. As President, he doubled enrollment and the size of the campus, and tripled the school’s endowment and the faculty size. RPI’s hockey arena, the Houston Fieldhouse, is a landmark on campus.
George M. Low
Brother Low was appointed the 17th President of RPI in 1976, after a long and distinguished career at NASA.
As Chief of Manned Space Flight, George was closely involved in the planning of NASA’s Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo Projects. He went on to lead the Apollo project and serve as the Deputy Administrator of NASA, where he was one of the leading figures in the early development of the Space Shuttle, the Skylab program, and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. George went on to serve as the Administrator of the entire NASA organization.
Shortly after President John F. Kennedy was inaugurated, he presented a report to the President laying out how the U.S. could send men to the Moon. His analysis led to the President’s famous speech on May 25, 1961, declaring that America would place men on the Moon within the decade. George then went on to make that prophecy come true. On July 16, 1984, after leading RPI for eight years, the White House announced that George had been awarded the President’s Medal of Freedom for his contributions to education and the nation’s space program. He passed away the next day. In 1987, The George M. Low Center for Industrial Innovation, a 200,000 sq.ft. research and teaching center to promote industrial innovation, was opened on campus. The Center houses the George M. Low Gallery, a collection of George’s awards and memorabilia donated by his family. The collection includes Brother Low’s Delta Phi tankard. The Gallery was renovated and officially reopened on June 28, 2014, the date of the 150th anniversary of the founding of Lambda chapter. The project was completely funded by contributions from 100 members of our alumni, at a cost of over $40,000.
Neal Barton
Brother Barton was appointed the acting President of RPI in 1998. To his credit, Neal would only accept a salary of $1 for his services in that role. Neal was a trustee of the Institute for twenty years. In the business world, he was President and CEO of Dorr-Oliver, an international manufacturer of machinery for liquid-solid separation and thermal processing for the food, environmental, mineral, paper and chemical industries. Neal led a successful fundraising campaign in the mid-1990s to renovate RPI’s Walker Laboratory (named after his fellow Delta Phi brother William Weightman Walker) and upgrade it to a state-of-the-art chemical laboratory and classroom facility. Freshman residence hall, Barton Hall, was named in Neal’s honor in 2000.
Other Prominent Alumni
Albert Metcalf Harper
Brother Harper was a student at RPI in 1862, when he decided to respond to President Lincoln’s call for more troops after the Union lost the second Battle of Bull Run. He fought at the Battle of Antietam and numerous other campaigns until he was gravely injured in the Battle of the Wilderness. Somehow, he survived and recovered and, by the Fall of 1864, was able to resume his military duties. Promoted to rank of Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General of U.S. volunteers by the President.
Still unable to assume field duties, Harper joined the headquarters staff in Philadelphia, where he served as one of the guard of honor to President Lincoln while his remains were in that city after his assassination. In the Fall of 1865, he returned to RPI, where he became the first Grand Marshal of the student body. After graduation, he helped start the mercantile firm, Dilworth, Harper & Co., where he remained until his death from typhoid fever in 1871. A monument bearing his name can be found on the grounds of the Battle of the Monongahela near Pittsburgh, where George Washington engaged in his first battle.
John Joseph Albright
Brother Albright was a leader in the Industrial Revolution. A businessman, he controlled the distribution of 20% of the movement of coal in the United States. He paved the first street in Buffalo, NY and provided 85% of the asphalt used to pave all the streets of Buffalo by 1890. As an engineer, he harnessed Niagara Falls to generate electric power. Also a financier, Albright was the catalyst that drove the formation of the Federal Reserve. Finally, he was a prominent philanthropist who funded the Albright Gallery, the third major art museum established in the U.S. He was instrumental in bringing to Buffalo the Pan American Exposition, the World’s Fair of 1901, which heralded the advent of alternating current. Brother Albright served as President of the Rensselaer Alumni Association from 1899-1900.
Curtis Palmer Stevens
Brother Stevens, together with his younger brother Hubert Stevens, are the only RPI graduates to ever win an Olympic gold medal. At the 1932 Winter Olympics (the first-ever Winter Olympics) in his hometown of Lake Placid, Curtis and his brother Hubert were the first Americans to win an Olympic gold medal in bobsledding. Always an innovator, Curtis used a blowtorch to heat the steel runners of his sled before the gold-medal winning run to increase his speed on the bobsled run. Curtis set the world and Olympic bobsled speed records and won several U.S. bobsled titles and one North American title. Stevens was also an accomplished motorboat racer, winning numerous races, including an international regatta in Cuba in 1929. With one of his brothers, he ran the Stevens House family hotel, the largest hotel in Lake Placid, hosting over 500 guests daily. Brother Stevens is a member of the USA Bobsled-Skeleton Hall of Fame and the Lake Placid Hall of Fame.
The Tradition of the Delta Phi Tankard
When you join the Delta Phi Brotherhood, you have the opportunity to become part of the tradition of the Delta Phi Tankard. Alternatively referred to at the Delta Phi Mug, the custom pewter vessels have a wealth of tradition associated with them. Tankards have lids engraved with the name of the university where the chapter is located. The bodies of the tankards feature one of the fraternity symbols (this has varied over the years between the fraternity Maltese Cross badge and the fraternity seal), surrounded by the engraved full name of the brother, the Greek chapter letter (Λ) and his initiation date. The bottom of the tankard is clear glass.
Brothers use their tankards to ‘Drink Long Life to Delta Phi’ and for the rest of their lives. For many brothers, the tradition continues in perpetuity. According to tradition, when a brother passes away, his tankard is returned to the Chapter house. In a ceremony attended by undergraduate and alumni brothers, the lid is sealed to the body of the tankard and the glass bottom is broken. The tankard then ascends to its place on one of the oak shelves on the walls of the Billiard Room in the Chapter house. The room is home to over 300 tankards of Lambda Chapter brothers, spanning initiation years almost a century, from 1870 to 1968.
The oldest tankards are those of John A. Corliss and William Pitt Mason, who were initiated on October 28, 1870. Brother Corliss went on to become President of Corliss, Coon & Co., one of the prominent manufacturers of shirt collars that gave Troy the nickname of The Collar City during the industrial Revolution. Brother Mason was a professor at RPI, rising to become the head of the Chemistry department (succeeding Brother Henry B. Mason) and later first Chair of the Chemical Engineering department. He was a world-renown expert on and early advocate for sanitary water supplies.
The most recent is that of Peter Justin Todd, initiated on April 21, 1968. Brother Todd was a chemist and a pioneer of tandem mass spectrometry and organic ion imaging. After a career at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Peter went on to found a successful data analytics company.
