Indeed , it seems strange how history repeats itself. Once again, our sister chapter, Theta Xi, provided the necessary drive to reactivate Alpha Psi. Among those directly involved in this great effort were brothers Corey Nicholson and Jeff Ball, who coordinated the resources of the Theta Xi, an extremely enthusiastic group of Montreal elders and the Grand Chapter.
A pledge class of 16 men was formed of McGill and Concordia students who had demonstrated an almost fanatical interest in reviving the Alpha Psi tradition. Soon they began to hold their own pledge meetings and started to rebuild the chapter from scratch.
The 16 members of the Alpha class were:
- Mark Stapleton
- Greg Aikins
- Greg Vit
- Andy Peiffer
- Peter Hopper
- Geoff Wickham
- Ken MacKinnon
- Perry Owen
- Jay Mann
- Mark Culver
- Pat McKeown
- Jacques Vaillancourt
- Dave Philbin
- Francois Savard
- Bob Lefebvre
- Graham Landgraff
On March 17, 1979, this proud and solid pledge class boarded the train for Toronto and was initiated by the actives and elders of the Theta Xi chapter. They soon returned to hold the first Alpha Psi chapter meeting in nine years. By the start of the fall semester of 1979, the chapter had obtained a house rented from McGill at 3483 Peel. Ironically it is believed that sometime during 1979 the old Memorial Chapter house burned nearly to the ground, leaving only the front and side walls intact. There still remained hope of buying the house within the next few years.
In 1983 the chapter celebrated its 100th anniversary by hosting the Grand Chapter convention held during the summer. Zetes from all over the world descended upon the Alpha Psi to celebrate the past 100 years and would be a bright future. Despite great enthusiasm, the Memorial Chapter house was once again sold, this time for a considerably larger sum, to a condo developer. The cold reality of losing the house, was disheartening, but did not drag the chapter down.
The chapter would be forced to move from the Peel St. house in 1986 by McGill in an effort to re-claim a bulk of their real estate around campus for residences. The stormy dispute that would ensue perhaps prevented us from obtaining other facilities at McGill, however all would not be lost. A Theta Xi Zete would once again come to the rescue of the Alpha Psi by allowing us to become partners in a house at 481 Prince Arthur. Since this house was spectacular to say the least, the loss of the Peel St. house was not nearly as bad as once thought.
For several major reasons, our stay at 481 Prince Arthur would be brief, and by 1989 the chapter was once again homeless. Throughout the next five years the Alpha Psi would see many ups and downs, many moves, and a significant amount of uncertainty.
Continue to present history…