Seven Society

The Seven Society (founded 1905)cite news |url=http://scripta.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-textwg/cavdaily.pl?str=seven%20society&offset=4932743&fileid=19680207 |work=Cavalier Daily |title= More Than $50,000 Awarded: Seven's History Of Gifts, Pranks Recalled |last=Ladt |first=Carroll |date=1968-02-07] is the most secretive of the University of Virginia's secret societies. Members are only revealed after their death, when a wreath of black magnolias in the shape of a "7" is placed at the gravesite, the bell tower of the University Chapel chimes seven times at seven-second intervals on the seventh dissonant chord when it is seven past the hour, and a notice is published in the University's Alumni News, and often in the "Cavalier Daily". cite book|last=Dabney|first=Virginius|authorlink=Virginius Dabney |title=Mr. Jefferson's University: A History |url=http://repo.lib.virginia.edu:18080/fedora/get/uva-lib:178665/uva-lib-bdef:100/getFullView |publisher=University of Virginia Press|location=Charlottesville|year=1981|pages=305-306|isbn=081390904X] The most visible tradition of the society is the painting of the logo of the society, the number 7 surrounded by the signs for alpha (A), omega (Ω), and infinity (∞), and sometimes several stars, upon many buildings around the grounds of the University.Dabney, 305.]

There is no clear history of the founding of the society. There is a legend that, of eight men who planned to meet for a card game, only seven showed up,cite news |url=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2003/sep/04/a-mark-to-remember/ |last=Cooper |first=Patricia |title=A Mark to Remember |work=Cavalier Daily |date=2003-09-04] and they formed the society. Other histories claim that the misbehavior of other secret societies, specifically the Hot Feet (later the IMP Society), led University President Edwin A. Alderman to call both the Hot Feet and the Z Society into his office and suggest that a more "beneficial organization" was needed.

The only known method to successfully contact the Seven Society is to place a letter at the Thomas Jefferson statue inside the University's historic Rotunda (accounts differ on the exact placement of the letter, either on the base or in the crook of the statue's arm).cite news |url=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2000/oct/11/tall-tales-illuminate-history-of-jeffersonian-land/ |title=Tall tales illuminate history of Jeffersonian landmark |last=Hofler |first=Julie |work=Cavalier Daily |date=2000-10-11]

Philanthropic gifts

The group contributes financially to the University, announcing donations with letters signed only with seven astronomical symbols in the order: Earth, Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Neptune, Uranus, and Venus. Saturn is not included. The Society gives large monetary donations and scholarships to the University each year in quantities that include the number 7, e.g. $777 or $1,777. Significant past gifts to the University include the Seven Society Carillon in the UVA Chapel, donated in memory of deceased members of the society, and given with the request that there should be a toll of seven times seven bells on the passing of a member;citation
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=rvPOHAAACAAJ&dq=%22seven+society%22+virginia&lr=
title=Dedication of the Seven Society Carillon |date=1957-1015 |pages=3 |accessdate=2008-01-06] a memorial to past Seven Society members who gave their lives in World War IDabney, 264.] ; $17,777.77 for a loan fund in honor of University president John Lloyd Newcomb; the ceremonial mace carried in academic processions; $10,777.77 in support of the re-establishment of Homecoming;cite news |url=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2003/oct/02/sevens-finance-homecoming-committee/ |title=Sevens finance homecoming committee |last=Ondrey |first=Clare |work=Cavalier Daily |date=2003-10-02] a plaque on the Rotunda honoring University students who died in the Korean War;Dabney, 425.] $7,077.77 to endow the Ernest Mead Fund for the Music Library;cite web |url=http://www.lib.virginia.edu/old-press/95-96/mead.html |title=UVA's Seven Society Honors Ernest Mead |accessdate=2008-09-22] $47,777.77 for the making of a film on the honor system;Dabney, 544.] and $1 million in support of the University's South Lawn Project.cite web |url=http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=693 |title=University of Virginia Breaks Ground on South Lawn Project |work=UVA Today |date=2006-09-26 |accessdate=2008-06-24] Most recently, the society gave a $777,777.77 grant to fund the Mead Endowment, which awards grants to professors to teach their "dream classes."cite news |url=http://www.cavalierdaily.com/news/2008/sep/22/mead-funds-presented-to-10-professors/ |title=Mead funds presented to 10 professors |last=Morenus |first=Kelly |date=2008-09-22 |work=Cavalier Daily]

In addition to granting spontaneous gifts, the Seven Society sponsors an annual $7,000 graduate fellowship award for superb teaching.cite web |url=http://trc.virginia.edu/Awards/GTA/Seven/Description.htm |title=The Seven Society Graduate Fellowship for Superb Teaching |work=University of Virginia Teaching Resource Center |accessdate=2008-06-22]

Notable members

The Seven Society is unusual among University of Virginia secret societies in including members who were not students or alumni of the University. Notable examples include Mary Proffitt, secretary to Dean James M. Page and Dean Ivey F. Lewis;cite web |url=http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/women/university_life4.html |title=Women and University Life: Faculty and Staff, part 2 |work=Women at the University of Virginia: Breaking and Making Tradition (UVA Library online exhibit) |accessdate=2008-06-24] Dabney, 108.] and Ivey F. Lewis himself, a non-alumnus professor and longtime dean of students at the University.Dabney, 415.]

Several notable individuals whose Seven Society membership was disclosed at their death include:
*James Rogers McConnell, student and volunteer for the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I, memorialized in Gutzon Borglum's statue "The Aviator"cite web |url=http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Albemarle/002-5073_Aviator_NR_final_2006.pdf |title=National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: The Aviator |date=2006-10-12 |format=PDF |accessdate=2008-06-22]
*Frank Wisner - head of Office of Strategic Services operations in southeastern Europe at the end of World War II, and the head of the Directorate of Plans of the Central Intelligence Agency during the 1950s.cite book |url=http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Very-Best-Men/Evan-Thomas/e/9780684810256#CHP |title=The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA |last=Thomas |first=Evan |year=1996 |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=0684825384]
*John Lloyd Newcomb, second president of the University of Virginia
*Edward Stettinius, Jr., secretary of state under Presidents Roosevelt and Trumancitation |last=Johnson |first=Bill |title=Seven Society's Secret Still Secret |newspaper=Washington Post |pages=C8 |date=1965-02-15]
*Adm. William F. Halsey
*Frank Hereford, fifth president of the University of Virginia
* H. Lockwood Frizzell, drafted by the Philadelphia Eaglescite journal |url=http://www.uvamagazine.org/site/c.esJNK1PIJrH/b.1601199/apps/s/content.asp?ct=3839049 |title=In Memoriam |journal=The University of Virginia Magazine |date=Summer 2007]

Seven Society at other colleges/universities

There have been several secret societies with "seven" in their name. No connection between the societies has been shown, but there is at least some tradition in the use of the names.

One such secret society is the Seven Society (Order of the Crown and Dagger) known to exist at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The founding date of the William and Mary society is reported to have been as early as 1826.cite news |url=http://swem.wm.edu/beta/flathat/issues/fh19420318.pdf |title=Secret Seven Announces Members For Past Year |work=The Flat Hat |date=1942-03-18 ]

A second unrelated society was the Mystic Seven Fraternity, constituted in 1885, [See University of Illinois fraternity archives at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/archives/uasfa/4102055.pdf] of which the Virginia Temple of the Hands and Torch was the parent chapter. Prior to the Civil War, there had been a Mystical Seven Society, with several chapters across the South. One surviving group at Mississippi created a chapter at Virginia. That Virginia chapter later organized the Mystic Seven Fraternity, also calling the new organization Phi Theta Alpha. [There is nothing to indicate that the post-Civil War Mystic Seven Fraternity had any real organic connection to the pre-Civil War Mystical Seven. The society's publication, "The Mystic Messenger", published articles questioning why the society even had such a distinctive name.] Five years later the Mystic Seven Fraternity merged with Beta Theta Pi, with the Virginia chapter becoming the Omicron chapter of Beta Theta Pi. [cite web |url=http://www.wesleyan.edu/weshistory/mystical7/mystical7.html |title=Mystical 7: A History |last=Wyatt-Greene |first=Benjamin |work=Wesleyan History Project |accessdate=2008-06-20]

A third unrelated society, also called Mystical Seven, was founded in 1907 at the University of Missouri. It is often claimed that this society was directly inspired by the Seven Society at Virginia, (although no citations are given), but it took the older Mystical Seven name.

References

ee also

*Secret societies at the University of Virginia
*Collegiate secret societies in North America