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| Organizations
: Alpha Mu Gamma : History |
| Alpha
Mu Gamma was established at Los Angeles City College on April
29, 1931, after five members of the foreign language faculty
recognized the need for a society to honor achievement in all
languages at an early stage in the student's career. The interest
shown by other colleges inspired the founders to expand the
society almost immediately into a national organization. By
1934 chapters had been established by Phoenix College (Phoenix,
California), Long Beach City College (Long Beach, California),
San Diego State College (San Diego, California), and Chico State
College (Chico, California). |
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| The Scroll
(now the Society's literary magazine) was begun as a semi-annual
newspaper in 1933. The following year the Society was incorporated
on a non-profit basis under the laws of California. |
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| By 1938
chapters had been established in Kansas, Missouri, and Minnesota.
In 1940 the first chapter was established in a large state university,
the University of California at Los Angeles. Soon the campuses
of the University of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara
had also formed chapters. In 1966, the 100th charter was granted
to Marywood College in Scranton, Pennsylvania. By 1984, there
were 252 chapters. |
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| The Lambda
Nu chapter at Texas A&M University-Commercer (formerly East
Texas State University) is the 277th chapter of the national
organization. |
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| In January
1957, through the efforts of the eleventh National President,
Sister Eloise Therese of the Sigma Chapter at Mount Saint Mary's
College in Los Angeles, the week of February 16-22 was proclaimed
as National Foreign Language Week by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Each successive President of the United States has continued
this practice. Soon the nationwide distribution of posters by
the famous Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist, Bruce Russell,
brought the name of Alpha Mu Gamma to the attention of foreign
language faculties everywhere and led to an extremely rapid
growth of the organization, especially in the East and Middle
West. |
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