Beta Facts & Firsts

Current Facts About the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity:

• Initiated Betas: over 165,000

• Living Betas: 116,000

• Active Undergraduate Membership With Pledges: 7,200

• Betas listed in Forbes 400: 40

• Scholarships awarded by Beta Theta Pi Foundation this Year: 96

• Chapters: 137

• Colonies: 7 

• Convention: Held Annually

• 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)

• Oldest continuously published college fraternity magazine (1872)

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

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

• First fraternity to adopt a national point of view with determination to be represented in all sections of the country

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