Mortar Board (Society). Northwestern University Chapter
Biography
Mortar Board was founded at Syracuse, New York, in 1918 as a national college honorary society for senior women. The society's stated mission was “to provide for the cooperation between senior honorary societies for women, to promote college loyalty, to advance the spirit of service and fellowship among university women, to promote and maintain a high standard of scholarship, to recognize and encourage leadership, and to stimulate and develop a finer type of college woman.”
In 1921, members of Cap and Tassel, a senior women's honorary at Northwestern University, petitioned the Mortar Board fraternity for a local chapter. Mortar Board granted Northwestern a chapter in the spring of 1922 and the chapter was installed in the fall of that year.
Traditionally, new members have been elected to membership in Mortar Board in the spring of their junior year. Northwestern's chapter began to induct men as members in the spring of 1976.