In 1852, three women at Wesleyan Female College in Macon, Georgia began an organization called the Philomathean Society which was destined to become the Alpha Chapter of Phi Mu Fraternity.
All evidence points to the likelihood that Mary Ann DuPont (Lines) took the initiative to bring together the group for friendship with the intent of bettering themselves and supporting their college through a new literary society. Her companions in the formation of this new group are described as two class members, Mary Elizabeth Myrick (Daniel) and Martha Bibb Hardaway (Redding).
The founding date of the Philomathean Society is placed at January 4, 1852. The next two months were busy ones in which the three Founders gathered additional members, created their constitution, devised an initiation service and adopted a secret motto and an open motto. The Philomathean Society and the Adelphean Society (Alpha Delta Pi), also founded at Wesleyan, are the two oldest, continuous college fraternal organizations for women.
On March 4, 1852, the members were ready to announce their new Society to the college and the world. This day has become Phi Mu Founders' Day.
By the turn of the century, almost 50 uninterrupted years at Wesleyan College had given the Philomathean Society a strong body of alumnae, a history rich in tradition and a confidence to expand into a national organization. On August 1, 1904, the members of the Philomathean Society were granted a charter to incorporate as a national organization, use the Greek letters Phi Mu and the right to establish additional chapters on other campuses.
The group at Wesleyan College became Alpha Chapter of Phi Mu Fraternity. Immediately Beta Chapter was established at Hollins College, Hollins, Virginia, launching a period of expansion that resulted in eight chapters by the first National Convention in June, 1907.
Essential to future growth, however, was recognition of National Panhellenic Conference (NPC), an association of national Greek-letter college fraternities for women formed in 1902. Gaining the coveted membership in NPC meant that Phi Mu must give up four early chapters established at seminaries. At the 1910 National Convention a member of one of those chapters that had to be sacrificed seconded the motion to take the necessary steps to gain entrance to NPC. Admittance came in December, 1911. Since then Phi Mu has continuously maintained a leadership position among the 26 member groups in the National Panhellenic Conference.
Today, the Fraternity has grown to encompass a diverse membership of more than 130,000 women nationwide. Phi Mu maintains a presence on 130 college and university campuses in the United States. Its alumnae remain actively involved, many of whom maintain membership in alumnae chapters in cities across the country.
Local History
Phi Mu Kappa
November 7, 1997 was the date when ten women were initiated into what has been described as the ultimate sorority experience known as Phi Mu Kappa.
Phi Mu Kappa was founded with the intent on having a sorority like no other. The goals were academics, a service to the community and school, and a true sisterhood that would last the test of time. Their ultimate goal has been achieved...becoming a Chapter of Phi Mu Fraternity!
The sorority has been very active in philanthropies, campus activities, and proving that we can stand under any conditions! The founding sisters chose to name The Crohns Colitis Foundation as the main philanthropy, for one of our founding sisters has been diagnosed with Crohns.
The 10 founding sisters are as follows:
Leiland Paulding, Tracie Goodman-Price, Terri Wiles, Jamie Kobeck, Regina Lynn Hayden, Jenny Sitnick, Brandy Williams, Kelly Griffin, Bridgett Brumbaugh, and Elka Brumbaugh
How it all started…
This is the story of how a small local sorority grew into a national organization with thousands of sisters.
Lei and Tracie have an idea...
Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Tracie Goodman (Price) and I work in the Student Government Office as the Vice President of Finance. My partner in crime, is Lei Paulding. She works in SGA as the ever efficient secretary. Lei and I had become pretty good friends through our mutual affiliation with SGA and we started talking one day about being in a sorority. She started telling me how she really missed her sisters and it had been a really big part of her life. Wait… I’m getting ahead of myself here.
I was involved in tons of clubs in college but I still felt like something was missing. I had recently gotten to know some of the other fraternities on campus and that’s when the longing began. I starting wishing for an organization like that. I wanted to belong to something as important and fulfilling as what these other people had.
At that time, there were two sororities on campus. One local, and one national. The local sorority was a nice enough group of women but it was not what I was looking for. So I looked into the national sorority and after talking with several of the sisters decided that this group was not for me either. By this time I was starting to get discouraged! I wanted to belong to a sisterhood but there was not one to be found on this college campus that was right for me.
Now Lei on the other hand had been a part of another sorority. She was a previous member of Delta Pi. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately) her local sorority had folded due to inner member struggles. Which brings me to the conversation that Lei and I were having one afternoon in the SGA office. She really missed her sisterhood and I was longing for a sisterhood. So we decided to start a new sorority!! Can you imagine?!?! We just said let’s start Delta Pi back up!!
So Lei dug out her old sorority stuff and we started advertising around campus for potential members. And we collected a group of 12 women. Twelve? What do you mean twelve? I thought there were 10 founding sisters of Phi Mu Kappa? Well, you are correct but that’s another story. The potential sisters were Lei Paulding, Tracie Goodman (Price), Brandy Williams, Terri Wiles, Lynn Haden, Elke Brumbaugh, Bridgett Brumbaugh, Jaime Kobeck, Kelly Griffin, Eli Cain, Rachel Reese, and Jenny Sittnick.
We ran into a problem right from the beginning. We were going to restart Delta Pi, which meant filling out a small amount of paperwork to restart an organization and going by all the previous policies. But we found out a week after we started this whole process that Delta Pi had an unpaid balance to a fundraising company for unsold candy. We were afraid that if we restarted Delta Pi we would be held accountable for this debt. So we took our first official vote and voted to change our name. Then it was up to Lei and I to decide what we would call ourselves. At first we thought about Kappa Delta Pi, but that is an honor society so we couldn’t use that. And then we started worrying about accidentally using a national’s name and getting into trouble for it. So we got on the internet and started looking up sororities and fraternities. We came across Phi Mu and were puzzled by the fact that it said it was a fraternity but the pictures were of girls. We now know why that is! We read their creed and symbols and history and were intrigued by the fact that one of the founding sisters was born in Columbus, GA. So we decided Phi Mu Kappa it was!! We patterned ourselves after them in nearly every way. We wanted the transition to be an easy one when we finally became a national organization.
We held several more meetings before the initiation date was set. But before we could have initiation we had to come up with a ceremony. Because remember, we are no longer Delta Pi so we can’t use their ceremony. Lei and I sat down in her bedroom one night and wrote the ceremony. So now we had a ceremony and it was decided the date would be November 7, 1997 at Lei Paulding’s house. We all wore black and had dinner at WD Crowley’s restaurant beforehand. We had a sleepover after the ceremony. This tradition has carried on ever since.
I was so nervous about the initiation. I had hoped the girls would not think it was dumb or goofy. Lei and I had poured our hearts into this ceremony and I tend to get nervous when I expose that much of myself to people. But the girls were thrilled and everyone cried! Finally, we were sisters!!! And that is the story of the birth of Phi Mu Kappa.
TMTY
