The 70th Biennial Convention of Pi Beta Phi has come and gone. How wonderful to see old friends, make new ones, and miss the ones who could not be there. Past Pi Beta Phi Grand Presidents Carolyn Lichtenberg and Beth Beatty were paid tribute during Sunday’s Memorial Service. Their legacy daughters were in attendance and spoke about their mothers. That was followed by the initiation of four alumnae members including Ellen Swain, the Archivist at the Student Life and Culture Archives at the University of Illinois. The convention festivities were wrapped up with a post convention trip to Holt House, the home in Monmouth, Illinois, where Pi Beta Phi was founded on April 28, 1867. I had the honor of being stationed in the Founders’ Room and seeing the emotions on the faces of the members who were in the room for the very first time. It is an experience I will never forget. As I boarded the train this morning, a DePauw University Phi Delta Theta member who was in line behind me in line was kind enough to help me get all my heavy bags on the train.
In the Founders’ Room at Holt House. Astute viewers will spot the back of former Grand President Sis Mullis in the center of the picture closest to the bed.
Today is Canada Day, the national day of Canada. Greek-letter organizations (GLOs) have been a part of Canadian higher education since 1879. Zeta Psi became the first fraternity in Canada when its chapter at the University of Toronto was chartered on March 27, 1879. Zeta Psi’s Grand Chapter met in 1877 and it was agreed that the fraternity should venture into Canada. The Xi Chapter at the University of Michigan was given the task of founding a chapter at the University of Toronto. It was a challenging task given what travel and communications were like in the 1870s, but the Michigan Zeta Psi’s were successful. The chapter designation, Theta Xi, honored the efforts of the Michigan chapter by incorporating the “Xi” into its name.
The chapter remained the sole fraternity on the University of Toronto campus until the 1890s when they were joined by Kappa Alpha Society, Alpha Delta Phi, Phi Kappa Sigma, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Delta Upsilon, and Delta Chi. The first National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) women’s organization at the University of Toronto was Kappa Alpha Theta. According to Theta’s 1956 history, We Who Wear Kites, “A letter from M.R Robertson of the University of Toronto explained that ‘one of the Zetas’ had given the seven girls of a local group ‘information about society matters and also your address.’ After favorable action by the Convention in 1887, Anna Louis Benham of Iota (Cornell University) was sent to Toronto to initiate the seven.”
The Sigma Chapter was chartered in 1887 giving Theta the distinction of being the first women’s fraternity in Canada. The faculty had a strong feeling against the Greek-letter organizations and the seven women who were initiated kept their membership a secret. By 1899, the chapter became dormant. In 1905, Sigma Chapter was revived. It was was soon followed by Alpha Phi in 1906 and Pi Beta Phi in 1908.
In 1883, McGill University’s fraternity system came to life when Zeta Psi chartered a second Canadian chapter. Again, as in the case of the University of Toronto, Zeta Psi was the only sole fraternity there in the 1880s. In the 1890s, it was joined by Alpha Phi Delta, Delta Upsilon, and Kappa Alpha Society. In 1922, Delta Phi Epsilon became the first NPC group to establish a chapter at McGill.
Today, there have been more than 150 chapters of North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC) men’s fraternities and more than 75 NPC organization chapters at Canadian institutions. About three-quarters of those chapters are currently active. There are also many local fraternities and sororities.
© Fran Becque, www.fraternityhistory.com, 2015. All Rights Reserved. If you enjoyed this post, please sign up for updates. Also follow me on twitter @GLOHistory and Pinterest www.pinterest.com/glohistory/
