Beta Phi Alpha
Beta Phi Alpha was an American collegiate sorority. It was formed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1919. It was absorbed by Delta Zeta in 1941.
History
The group had a succession of names. Founded on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley on, Beta Phi Alpha began as Bid-A-Wee, a group created to meet the needs of a "very difficult housing situation". Through future name changes, the fraternity continued to count its Founders Day as 8 May 1909. The founders were Edith May Harriman, Elsa Erva Meta Ludeke, Anna Belle Nelson, Hattie Belle Paul, Ida Luise Rinn, and Lydia Maude Taylor.In 1912, the name changed to Aldebaran, after the star. This change, and an expanded symbolism, mark the point where interest began among members for expansion to other campus groups.
On November 24, 1919, the group chose to rename itself as a Greek letter organization with the name Kappa Phi Alpha. But within a year, discovering that a men's fraternity in Boston had been operating under those letters, in 1920, the sorority took on its final name, Beta Phi Alpha. The 1919 date appears to be the juncture where the group, now solidly interested in connecting with other campus organizations, began to establish structures that would aid such growth. This process was led by Mary Gordon Holway, who wrote the ritual and advocated for a Greek letter identity.
Beta Phi Alpha then began the process of nationalization and expansion. In 1923, it was granted membership in the National Panhellenic Conference. Expansion was often effected by the absorption of local chapters or restless chapters of struggling non-NPC sororities. One of these was a five-year-old local at the University of Minnesota called Zeta Alpha that became the Kappa chapter of Beta Phi Alpha in 1927. A total of 35 chapters were installed by 1936, but only a portion of them survived due to the economic downturn of the Great Depression. For example, in 1936, two of the six chapters of a small national sorority called Phi Delta affiliated with Beta Phi Alpha, creating chapters at New York University and George Washington University. However, it appears these did not survive, as five years later they were not reflected in the final chapter list at the time of merger with Delta Zeta.
On June 22, 1941, Beta Phi Alpha joined in a friendly merger with Delta Zeta sorority. Delta Zeta gained eight undergraduate chapters from the merger. At the time of the merger, Beta Phi Alpha had chartered thirty chapters with 3,295 initiates.
Beta Phi Alpha's Convention Lights is still sung at the close of Delta Zeta national conventions. The gavel that opens Delta Zeta's convention is an artifact of Beta Phi Alpha. It was given to Beta Phi Alpha by Founder Elsa Ludeke. The gavel is inscribed with the names of both sororities' founders and national presidents.
Symbols
Delta Zeta's history book described the insignia as follows: Its badge "was a pearled Φ with Greek letters Β and Α embossed on a field of black enamel at either side of the Φ's stem". Its colors were Kelly green and gold. Its flower was the yellow tea rose. The fraternity's open motto was Scientia, Virtus, Amicitiaor or "Knowledge, Virtue, Friendship". Its publication was Aldebaran.The Creed of Beta Phi Alpha was:
We believe in service, the keynote of our daily lives, the foundation of our Fraternity, and its power to reveal the worth of woman. We believe in knowledge and its broadening influence, in understanding and unselfish love as the creators of our happiness.
We pray for grace to meet success with humility, for strength and courage to rise above failure with spirit renewed, for wisdom to judge man by the spiritual values he may possess. We strive to keep faith in ourselves. We believe in the brotherhood of man and in our kinship to God, our Creator.