Fellow Beta Brothers and other Greeks,
Beta Theta Pi had much to do with the creation of the Greek world today. Not only was Beta the first Fraternity founded west of the Allegheny Mountains, they were the first of three fraternities founded at Miami University. Beta Theta Pi - 1839, Phi Delta Theta - 1848 and Sigma Chi - 1855. (The ever-infamous Miami Triad that is in some many pledge manuals)
Sigma Chi was a 'spin off' of the Delta Kappa Epsilon after six of their members had a disagreement and ended up forming 'Sigma Phi', later to be Sigma Chi.
Phi Delta Theta had decided not to grant a charter to local fraternity, and because of that, the local fraternity went on to form the TKE Fraternity.
Beta Theta Pi almost lost its Michigan chapter (Lambda) back in 1865 when all but one of its members disbanded and joined another fraternity - Psi Upsilon. Brother Edward C. Boudinot was not enlisted in the Civil War, and was the sole Beta not to disband and join Psi Upsilon. Because of that, Beta succeeded at Michigan and still exists today.
Beta has never merged into another fraternity, however other fraternities have merged into Beta. 1880 Beta accepted the Brown Chapter of Phi Kappa Alpha, the Denison Chapter of Alpha Kappa Phi, Dartmouth was the last chapter of Sigma Delta Pi and Missouri was the last chapter of Zeta Phi. One of Betas most well known acquisition was in 1879 with Alpha Sigma Chi (William Raymond Baird - Bairds Manual!!!!) The other well-known acquisition was with the Mystical Seven in the late 1800's.
Beta has also influenced a few sororities. As mentioned before, Bettie Locke’s (Kappa Alpha Theta Founder) dad was a Beta, and her brother a FIJI. If you look closely at the KAT badge, it is a combo of the Beta Badge and FIJI pin.
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Alpha Chi Omega sorority was also helped with its founding by Beta Brother Dr. James G. Campbell.
Any way you look at it, fraternities as old as Beta have influenced the Greek system in some way. I could make this list go on for a long time. I don't know how many Crests/Coat of Arms are based off of Betas....
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