Kappa Alpha Theta turns 150 today! In 1867, 17-year-old Bettie McReynolds Locke (Hamilton) was the first female to enroll in Indiana Asbury College (now DePauw University) in Greencastle, Indiana. Although the first decision to allow women to attend Asbury was made in 1860, it was rescinded several times with debate following each decision.
Bettie was the daughter of Dr. John Wesley Locke, a mathematics professor, and she was a formidable student. During her sophomore year, she received an invitation to wear a Phi Gamma Delta badge. The badge did not come with a dating arrangement as later tradition would have it, nor did it come with the benefits given to men who were initiated into the fraternity. When she declined the badge because it did not come with full membership rights and responsibilities, the Phi Gamma Delta chapter substituted a silver cake basket, inscribed with the Greek letters “Phi Gamma Delta.”
With encouragement and prodding from her father, a Beta Theta Pi alumnus, and her brother William, a Phi Gamma Delta, she began plans to start her own fraternity. She and Alice Allen, another female in the first coeducational Asbury class, studied Greek, parliamentary law and heraldry with an eye towards founding a fraternity for women.
On January 27, 1870, Bettie Locke stood before a mirror and repeated the words of the Kappa Alpha Theta initiation vow she had written. She then initiated Alice Olive Allen (Brant), Bettie Tipton (Lindsey), and Hannah Fitch (Shaw). Five weeks later, Mary Stevenson, a freshman, joined the group. Badges larger than the current Kappa Alpha Theta badges were painstakingly designed by the founders and made by Fred Newman, a New York jeweler. The badges were first worn to chapel services by the members of Kappa Alpha Theta on March 14, 1870.
Kappa Alpha Theta’s extension quickly took place. Locke’s father had a friend who was a trustee at Indiana University in Bloomington. The friend had a daughter, Minnie Hannamon, who was college age. In April, a letter was written to Hannamon and Locke visited Bloomington in early May. On May 18, 1870, Locke installed Kappa Alpha Theta at Indiana University with the initiation of the three charter members. It was evidence of the policy outlined in the original constitution giving the mother chapter at Indiana Asbury University the power to establish other collegiate chapters.
The next three chapters were short-lived. In December of 1870, a chapter was established at Cincinnati Wesleyan University, an experiment that only lasted six months. A chapter at Millersburg College in Kentucky lasted less than a year. The one at Moore’s Hill College in Indiana existed for five years. The latter was the first Theta chapter to feel the pressure of faculty opposition as well as a limited number of women at the institution.
Northwestern Christian College, today known as Butler University, became home to the Indiana Delta chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta on February 27, 1874. When Kappa Alpha Theta changed the naming system of chapters, it became the Gamma chapter. Two members of the chapter at Indiana University, Teresa Luzadder Gregory and Laura Henly, assisted in the formation of the chapter. The chapter was inactive from February 25, 1886 through November 3, 1906.
The Epsilon chapter at Wooster College was known as Ohio Alpha when it was chartered on May 12, 1875. The chapter ceased to exist in 1913 when the college administration ordered all the fraternities to close.
The second national convention was held in Indianapolis on May 14, 1875, with delegates from four chapters in attendance. Due to the efforts of University of Indiana Thetas, a chapter was founded in 1875, at Illinois Wesleyan College. It was known as Illinois Alpha. Twenty years later, the determination was made that there were not enough fraternity-minded students to continue at Illinois Wesleyan. The charter was transferred to the chapter at the University of Illinois which became known as the Delta chapter.
Kappa Alpha Theta, along with I.C. Sorosis (Pi Beta Phi), Kappa Kappa Gamma, and Delta Gamma expanded throughout the midwest in the 1870s and early 1880s, setting the stage to the Panhellenic system we know today. In 1881, Alpha Phi expanded to Northwestern University, quickly followed by Gamma Phi Beta’s second chapter at the University of Michigan. These six and Delta Delta Delta, founded the National Panhellenic Conference in 1902.
