Life in the Brotherhood

A picture showing new initiates wearing the Tiger Brotherhoood "wooden keys." 

How do you get into the Tiger Brotherhood? 

As stated early, both faculty and students were able to join the club. They had separate titles within the fraternity and were selected to join in different ways. Active members, which was confined to sophomore through senior students, were nominated based upon outstanding academic performance, moral character, loyalty to Clemson, and a “fearless devotion to those ideals which contribute to the highest type of manhood" [1]. Unlike the active members, the honorary members, which extended to alumni of the fraternity, and faculty, were nominated by an existing member of the brotherhood. Once someone was selected to join, the fraternity would hold a ballot and vote on whether the person in question would be able to join or not. They used an Australian Secret Ballot style voting system. There were no fees involved with joining the fraternity. 

- The oath that was said by all cubs to officially join the brotherhood [5]. 

Becoming a Cub

Once selected and voted through, new candidates, or "cubs", began initiation. The Tiger has this to say about initiation into the brotherhood, "Beginning Monday the pledges will undergo a stiff period of informal initiation during which time they will wear the familiar wood key, carry mints and cigarettes for old boys, and do similar initiation stunts" [3].  Initiation was a two-week process broken up into two main parts, the wearing of the wooden key and saying the tiger oath [4]. Initiates would wear the wooden keys throughout the initiation process. The wooden keys displayed the brotherhood's crest with the words "omnibus unus et unus omnibus" underneath.  While the exact origins of the design of the crest are unknown, the phrase beneath it, is Latin for "one for all and all for one" which is the motto of the brotherhood. The new initiates would then say the tiger oath and become full-fledged members of the brotherhood.