Beta Facts & Firsts

Current Facts About the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity:

  • Initiated Betas: over 184,000

  • Living Betas: over 126,000

  • Active Undergraduate Membership With Pledges: 6,907

  • Betas listed in Forbes 400: 40

  • Scholarships awarded by Beta Theta Pi Foundation this Year: 64

  • Chapters/Colonies: 118

  • Convention: Washington, D.C.  &mdash August 5-8, 2010

  • Administrative Office: Oxford, Ohio. Completed October 1994. 17,000 sq. ft.; occupied by 22 full and part-time staff, including education consultants. Cost $2.9 million, including eight acres of land, building, furnishings and equipment. Construction funded entirely through alumni contributions.

  • Beta pioneered in organizing the fraternity into territorial districts (1873)

  • Beta is a leader among college fraternities with members listed in Who's Who in America and Canadian Who's Who

  • There was a Beta on the Supreme Court from 1877 to 1975, including the late Justice William O. Douglas, Whitman '20, (dec.)

  • More than 80 Betas are Rhodes Scholars

Beta Firsts:

The Beta Theta Pi Fraternity has been first in many things. Here are some of the things that make Beta a crucial element in the Greek community:

  • First college fraternity founded west of the Allegheny Mountains (August 8, 1839)

  • First fraternity to establish a chapter west of the Mississippi River (1866)

  • First fraternity to create alumni chapters (1867)

  • First fraternity to have general officers (1872)

  • Oldest continuously published college fraternity magazine (1872)

  • First to break into districts for administrative purposes (1873)

  • First college fraternity to publish an open constitution for public distribution (1878)

  • First fraternity to adopt an expansion view

  • First fraternity to have a General Convention and one of few to have annual Conventions

  • First to host an interfraternity event and meeting

  • First to require chapters to keep informed about each other

  • First fraternity to adopt a 2.5 minimum GPA for a chapter (1984)

  • First General Fraternity to establish a chapter in Hawaii (1992)

  • First fraternity to adopt a 2.5 minimum GPA for each member (1997)

  • First fraternity to adopt a 2.7 minimum GPA for a chapter (2006)