Delta Tau Delta
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40 free Delta Tau Delta trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Delta Tau Delta began in 1858, when eight students who felt cheated in a campus literary contest formed a secret society of their own. It nearly died during the Civil War, was rescued by one determined founder, and grew into an international fraternity with more than 170,000 initiates. This quiz covers the story new members are expected to learn: the founding and the men behind it, the badge, flower, colors and coat of arms, the convention and governing board, the merger that reshaped the fraternity in 1886, and its philanthropy. It also covers the well-known alumni, from film and television stars to astronauts, athletes and a Supreme Court justice. It is written for pledges studying for the fraternity exam, for alumni who want to test what they remember, and for anyone curious about what goes on behind the letters.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which Anchorman star joined Delta Tau Delta at USC, where he was known for streaking around campus?
Will Ferrell
Will Ferrell studied sports broadcasting at the University of Southern California and has stayed an active alumnus of the fraternity.
Q 02Which Oscar-winning actor joined Delta Tau Delta as a film student at the University of Texas?
Matthew McConaughey
Matthew McConaughey graduated in 1993 with a radio-television-film degree. He had wanted to attend Southern Methodist University until a brother warned him about the tuition.
Q 03Which actor, the voice of Patrick Star in SpongeBob SquarePants, was a Delta Tau Delta member at Idaho?
Bill Fagerbakke
Bill Fagerbakke played football for Idaho until a knee injury ended his athletic career and turned him toward the theater.
Q 04Delta Tau Delta's philanthropy partner since 2012, once called JDRF, fights which disease?
Type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes is the cause: chapters team up with local offices of Breakthrough T1D, the renamed JDRF, for walks, galas and campus fundraisers.
Q 05Which baseball executive, a Delta Tau Delta member at Ohio Wesleyan, later signed Jackie Robinson?
Branch Rickey
Branch Rickey caught for Ohio Wesleyan's baseball team, and as an executive he also built the framework of the modern farm system.
Q 06Delta Tau Delta's brick Founders House, built in the 1850s, has which architectural style?
Greek Revival
Greek Revival suits the birthplace of a letter society; the two-story house joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
Q 07Which Stanford quarterback and Delta Tau Delta member later won two Super Bowls with the Broncos?
John Elway
John Elway left Stanford with an economics degree, and the New York Yankees picked him in the second round of the 1981 baseball draft.
Q 08Which Rocky Mountain High singer joined Delta Tau Delta as an architecture student at Texas Tech?
John Denver
John Denver left Texas Tech in 1963 for Los Angeles folk clubs. Another of his hits is now a state song of West Virginia, where the fraternity was born.
Q 09Which comic, who took over The Price Is Right in 2007, was a Delta Tau Delta member at Kent State?
Drew Carey
Drew Carey was expelled from Kent State twice for poor grades and left after three years, then enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve.
Q 10Which Delta Tau Delta member, a military aide to two US presidents, died when the Titanic sank?
Archibald Butt
Archibald Butt served Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft in turn; he had joined the fraternity at the University of the South in Sewanee.
Q 11Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at which small school in what is now West Virginia?
Bethany College
Bethany College is where eight undergraduates aged 17 to 26 wrote a constitution, devised a ritual and designed a badge for their new secret society.
Q 12What do Delta Tau Delta members call a chapter house, a word also in the title of a Delt song?
Shelter
Shelter is the Delt word for a chapter house, and Delta Shelter is among the traditional songs that chapters still sing.
Q 13What is Delta Tau Delta's biennial convention called, a name that means a festival of Apollo?
Karnea
Karnea meets every two years in cities across North America, where delegates debate the constitution and elect the governing board.
Q 21A rigged prize vote at which campus literary club drove eight students to found Delta Tau Delta?
Neotrophian Society
The Neotrophian Society was the hub of campus life, so the eight formed a secret group to wrest control back for the wider student body.
Q 22Which Delta Tau Delta founder returned from Kentucky in 1861 and saved the dying fraternity?
Henry K. Bell
Henry K. Bell found two students at Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, who rode 22 miles through a snowstorm to be initiated as the Civil War emptied the campus.
Q 23Which Delta Tau Delta founder, listed as dead in early catalogues, was found alive in Arkansas?
Alexander C. Earle
Q 14Truth, Courage and Faith are three of Delta Tau Delta's four core principles; what is the fourth?
Power
Power, in the fraternity's telling, begins as inner strength and grows when individuals unite as a brotherhood.
Q 15Delta Tau Delta's magazine, once The Crescent, took which name after an 1886 merger?
The Rainbow
The Rainbow honors the Rainbow Fraternity, a Southern society that accepted the Delt name, badge and ritual in exchange for a renamed journal.
Q 16Which flower, namesake of a figure from classical myth, is Delta Tau Delta's official flower?
Iris
Iris is the official flower, and the Rite of Iris, a ceremony chapters perform in public, salutes a Southern fraternity that merged with the Delts.
Q 17Delta Tau Delta's Central Office left New York City long ago for which Midwestern state capital?
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the address again after a stretch in suburban Fishers, where a purpose-built headquarters opened in 2002.
Q 18Which Delta Tau Delta governing board, elected at each convention, began as the Executive Council?
Arch Chapter
Arch Chapter became the name under an 1889 constitution; delegates at the convention set policy and this alumni board carries it out.
Q 19What symbol sits above the letters on Delta Tau Delta's square, black-enamel membership badge?
An eye
An eye, rayed in glory, tops the letters, with a crescent moon beneath them and a five-pointed star in each corner.
Q 20Which three official colors fill Delta Tau Delta's flag and the twisted rope on its coat of arms?
Purple, white and gold
Purple, white and gold mattered early on because members wore the colors as sashes and caps when official badges were too costly.
Alexander C. Earle, the youngest founder at 17, had left to fight for the Confederacy; he was greeted as a returning hero and attended three conventions.
Q 24Which Pennsylvania school's Delta Tau Delta chapter became the fourth and final Alpha in 1875?
Allegheny College
Allegheny College took the title after member James S. Eaton travelled to Ohio to rescue the records of a governing chapter that had collapsed.
Q 25The W.W.W., a society that merged into Delta Tau Delta in 1886, began on which Southern campus?
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi is where seven transfers from an Alabama college founded the society in 1848; their chapter became the Delts' Pi chapter.
Q 26Which city hosted Delta Tau Delta's first general convention in 1866 and its centennial in 1958?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh drew delegates from just five chapters in 1866; a later convention there made a pilgrimage to the restored founding house.
Q 27Two of Delta Tau Delta's founders already belonged to which older secret fraternal order?
Freemasons
Freemasons William Cunningham and Richard Alfred were in their mid-twenties in 1858, and Cunningham's lodge experience helped him draft the outline of the new group.
Q 28Delta Tau Delta helped found which umbrella group for men's fraternities in 1909?
National Interfraternity Conference
The National Interfraternity Conference grew out of a wish to turn bitter rivalries into cooperation, and Delt James B. Curtis was one of its founders.
Q 29Which Supreme Court justice was Delta Tau Delta's international president from 1966 to 1968?
Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark joined at the University of Texas; he left the Court in 1967, mid-presidency, so his son could become attorney general without a conflict.
Q 30In 1924 Delta Tau Delta added a board officer devoted solely to which side of chapter life?
Scholarship
Scholarship got its own supervisor after grades slumped around World War I, and the fraternity also set an academic standard for initiation.