April 7, 2017: Happy 68th Anniversary to our Beta Iota Chapter (Utica), which was chartered on this day in 1949. Here's how the Chapter came to be:
One of the first new expansion attempts after World War II was to bring back our long-closed Alpha Chapter. Not being able to directly get back to Syracuse, an attempt was made to get onto Syracuse’s newly opened campus in Utica, New York at the Utica College of Syracuse University. Thus in 1948, Interested Italian students desiring to be part of Alpha Phi Delta formed what they called “The Alpha Club” — this club yielded us the founders of our Beta Iota Chapter. According to the school’s yearbook, "The Alpha Club was formed in the Spring of 1948 for male undergraduate students of Utica College of Syracuse University. It is the desire and the ambition of the Alpha Club to affiliate itself with Alpha Phi Delta National Fraternity. The purposes for the organization of this club are to unite, in fraternity bonds, persons of good character, to stimulate scholarship, loyalty to our Alma Mater and service to the community and humanity."
And so it came to pass and Beta Iota was chartered on April 7, 1949.