Phi Alpha Tau is the oldest professional communicative arts

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

 fraternity

Fraternities and sororities

Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...

 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, founded in 1902 by Walter Bradley Tripp at Emerson College

Emerson College

Emerson College is a private coeducational university located in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1880 by Charles Wesley Emerson as a "school of oratory," Emerson is "the only comprehensive college or university in America dedicated exclusively to communication and the arts in a liberal arts...

 in Boston, Massachusetts. It was founded to support the student-run debate society at Emerson College, and maintain its status as a student run organization. Currently, members are involved in all areas of communications including film, comedy, politics, theatre, marketing, publishing, writing, television and radio.

Some of the organization's honorary members include Edward R. Murrow

Edward R. Murrow

Edward Roscoe Murrow, KBE was an American broadcast journalist. He first came to prominence with a series of radio news broadcasts during World War II, which were followed by millions of listeners in the United States and Canada.Fellow journalists Eric Sevareid, Ed Bliss, and Alexander Kendrick...

, Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan

Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...

, Rex Trailer

Rex Trailer

Rex Trailer is a Boston, Massachusetts based television personality, broadcast pioneer, and Country and Western recording artist. He is best known as the host of the children's show Boomtown.-Early life:...

, William F. Buckley Jr., Robert B. Parker

Robert B. Parker

Robert Brown Parker was an American crime writer. His most famous works were the novels about the private detective Spenser. ABC television network developed the television series Spenser: For Hire based on the character in the late 1980s; a series of TV movies based on the character were also...

 and Boston radio personality David Brudnoy

David Brudnoy

David Brudnoy was an American talk radio host in Boston from 1976 to 2004. His radio talk show aired on WBZ radio. He was known for espousing his libertarian views on a wide range of political issues, in a manner that was courteous. Thanks to WBZ's wide signal reach, he gained a following from...

.

Tau, led by president Michael Burditt Norton, inducted Boston mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 Thomas Menino

Thomas Menino

Thomas Michael "Tom" Menino is the mayor of Boston, Massachusetts, United States and the city's first Italian-American mayor...

 into the fraternity on January 28, 2007 and presented him with an award named in Brudnoy's honor.

The Fraternity also awards the Joseph E. Connor Memorial Award for Excellence in the Communicative Arts to men of national distinction who embody the ideals of the fraternity and further the communicative arts. The Award commemorates Connor, a beloved brother and adviser of the Fraternity who died in 1952. In addition to Murrow, Kazan, Frost, and Parker, past recipients include actors Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Actor for the film version; he also played the role more than 4,500 times on...

 and Jack Lemmon

Jack Lemmon

John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts , Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925June...

, TV personality Bob Keeshan

Bob Keeshan

Robert James "Bob" Keeshan was an American television producer and actor. He is most notable as the title character of the children's television program Captain Kangaroo, which became an icon for millions of people during its 30-year run from 1955 to 1984.Keeshan also played the original...

, Speaker of the House John W. McCormack, along with many others. In December of 2007, Tau honored Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart

Keith Lockhart

For the baseball player, see Keith Lockhart Keith Lockhart , to Newton Frederick and Marilyn Jean Woodyard Lockhart, is an American orchestral conductor....

, making him the third consecutive Pops conductor to receive the award, following Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler

Arthur Fiedler was a long-time conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra, a symphony orchestra that specializes in popular and light classical music. With a combination of musicianship and showmanship, he made the Boston Pops one of the best-known orchestras in the country...

 and John Williams

John Williams

John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

. On May 26, 2010 the most recent recipient was photojournalist David Burnett.