page_title: ANAK Society
section_title: Student organizations
hierarchical_section_title: ANAK Society / Influence / Student organizations
caption_attribution_description: English: Editorial board of the first edition of the Blue Print, en:Georgia Tech's en:yearbook. Source: 1908 Blue Print. Available online: http://hdl.handle.net/1853/12285
context_page_description: The ANAK Society is the oldest known secret society and honor society at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Founded in 1908, ANAK's purpose is "to honor outstanding juniors and seniors who have shown both exemplary leadership and a true love for Georgia Tech". The society is named after Anak, a biblical figure said to be the forefather of a race of giants.
  ANAK comprises at least 1,100 Georgia Tech graduates, faculty members, and honorary members. Although not founded as a secret society, it has kept its activities and membership rosters confidential since 1961. Membership is made public upon a student's graduation or a faculty member's retirement. Notable members include Jimmy Carter, Bobby Dodd, Ivan Allen Jr., Bobby Jones, and most of Georgia Tech's presidents. Membership in the ANAK Society has long been considered the highest honor a Georgia Tech student can receive, although the society's activities have been the object of suspicion and controversy in recent years.
  The society has been influential in the history of Georgia Tech.
context_section_description: The ANAK Society played a major role in establishing several of Georgia Tech's most active student organizations, including two student publications and the student government. The society's existence was formally announced in the first edition of the Blue Print in 1908. Four ANAK charter members served on the first Blue Print editorial board. By 1911, ANAK admitted four more 1908 Blue Print editors into the society, including Editor-in-Chief John G. Chapman. These close relationships enabled the society to assert a great deal of control over the yearbook's direction in future decades. Along with several other clubs and societies, ANAK listed its membership roster and provided a group photograph in the yearbook. 
  ANAK and three Georgia Tech faculty members appointed the first staff of the Technique, Georgia Tech's student newspaper. Eugene A. Turner, secretary of the Georgia Tech YMCA, and Albert Blohm, an adjunct professor of English, served as the newspaper's first editors, while W. G. Perry, a junior professor of English, acted as the Technique's first faculty advisor. The Technique published its first edition on November 11, 1911, and has been in continuous weekly publication since that time, with a modern circulation of 10,000.
  In the absence of an official student government during the first few decades at Georgia Tech, the ANAK society acted as an unofficial student government and proposed an Honor Code, modeled on that of West Point's, in 1908. ANAK worked to set up a more formal organization, the Student Council (later the Student Government Association), in 1922, at which point it relinquished any decision-making privileges it had over the student body.
  Other student organizations ANAK claims to have established include a chapter of the YMCA in 1910 and the Ramblin' Reck Club in 1930. The former claim, however, contradicts evidence of a YMCA chapter existing before 1908, and possibly as early as 1901. In 1912, ANAK additionally formed the Koseme Society, a comparable honor society geared towards sophomores and juniors at Georgia Tech.
caption: Four ANAK charter members served on the first Blue Print editorial board in 1908.
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