Alpha Zeta (ΑΖ) is a professional fraternity for students and industry professionals in the agriculture and natural resources fields. Founded in 1897 at The Ohio State University, Alpha Zeta is the first and oldest collegiate society for agriculture. Today, Alpha Zeta has over 117,000 alumni and 3,000 student members at 74 universities.
The fraternity was founded on November 4, 1897 by Charles Burkett, John Cunningham, and ten other agriculture students at Ohio State University.
Chapters are named for individuals prominent in some way with respect to agriculture or after the locality of the chapter.
Townshend - The Ohio State University - 1897
Morrill - The Pennsylvania State University - 1898
Morrow - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - 1900
Cornell - Cornell University - 1901
Kedzie - Michigan State University - 1902
Granite - University of New Hampshire - 1903
Nebraska - University of Nebraska-Lincoln - 1904
North Carolina - North Carolina State University - 1904
Wilson - Iowa State University - 1905
Green Mountain - University of Vermont - 1905
La Grange - University of Minnesota - 1905
Centennial - Colorado State University - 1906
Babcock - University of Wisconsin–Madison - 1906
Maine - University of Maine-Orono - 1906
Missouri - University of Missouri - 1907
Elliott - Washington State University - 1907
Purdue - Purdue University - 1908
California - University of California-Berkeley - 1908
Kansas - Kansas State University - 1909
Dacotah - North Dakota State University - 1909
Montana - Montana State University - 1912
Scovell - University of Kentucky - 1912
Georgia - University of Georgia - 1914
Delaware - University of Delaware - 1916
Oklahoma - Oklahoma State University - 1916
Florida - University of Florida - 1922
New Jersey - Rutgers University - 1922
South Dakota - South Dakota State University - 1924
Virginia - Virginia Tech - 1932
Nevada - University of Nevada, Reno - 1963
California Eta - California State University, Chico - 2004
California Epsilon - California State University, Fresno - 2005
Morris N. Abrams - Louisiana educator (LSU)
John R. Block - Secretary of Agriculture under Ronald Reagan
Norman Borlaug - Nobel laureate
Earl Butz - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1971–1976) (Purdue, '31)
Robert C. Baker - Professor Emeritus of Food Science, Cornell University; Inventor of the chicken nugget (Cornell '43)
Herman Cain - former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza
Walter Clore - Father of the Washington Wine Industury
Dwight D. Eisenhower - U.S. President
Arthur Rose Eldred - Agriculturalist, first Eagle Scout recognized by the Boy Scouts of America (Cornell '16)
Dan R. Glickman - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1995–2001); current president of the Motion Picture Association of America
Edwin Jackson Kyle - Former U.S. ambassador to Guatemala (1945–1948), namesake of Texas A&M's Kyle Field (Cornell, '02)
Henry C. Wallace - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1921–1924) (Honorary, '22)
William Jardine - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1925–1929) (Kansas, '11)
Henry A. Wallace - Vice President of the United States, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1933–1940), Founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred, Secretary of Commerce (Wilson, '08)
Ezra Taft Benson - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1953–1961) (Honorary, '53)
Orville Freeman - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1961–1969), Minnesota Governor (Honorary, '62)
Clifford Hardin - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1969–1971) (Purdue, '53)
Richard Lyng - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1986–1989) (Wilson, '74)
Albert Schatz - Co-discoverer of streptomycin with Selman Waksman (Cook)
Selman Waksman - Discoverer of streptomycin and coined the word "antibiotic", Nobel laureate (Cook)
Kenneth E. Wing - President (1992–2002) of SUNY Cobleskill (Cornell '58)
Clayton Yeutter - U.S. Secretary of Agriculture (1989–1991) (Nebraska, '50)
Lester Brown - Founder of the Earth Policy Institute (Cook)