Margery Robinson Phillips (Sigma-Washington), served as director of extension and recruitment on the Executive Board from 1946-48 and led the Fraternity into a new expansionist era. Until this time, Alpha Phi had preferred to remain small, cautious and elitist, a policy the Fraternity thought would result in strength. The Fraternity boasted it had never lost a collegiate chapter.
However, many women’s fraternities surpassed Alpha Phi in size. For years, the Fraternity favored placing chapters on university, not college campuses and preferred those with a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. By 1943 Alpha Phi had only 39 collegiate chapters. Margery Phillips noted Delta Gamma’s rapid expansion during the 1940s and felt Alpha Phi must do the same. Eleven new chapters were installed during the 1940s, Beta Chi among them. Beta Chi was welcomed into the Sisterhood at the June 1948 Convention in Colorado.
Alpha Phi’s Beta Chi chapter began as a local sorority, Phi Tau Sigma, in 1946 on the Bucknell campus. The chapter was one of eleven new chapters installed during the 1940s, which increased the number of Alpha Phi chapters by 30%. Phi Tau Sigma became the Beta Chi chapter of Alpha Phi on February 14, 1948. It was the first chapter established in Pennsylvania.
The appeal of the Greek system meant that you could live in the best building on campus in those days—Hunt Hall—in junior and senior years. Women were required to live on campus, and Alpha Phi’s “suite” was on the first floor—very appealing because at that time there were no elevators in any of the buildings. Hunt Hall is still where women’s fraternities are housed. Very few people are allowed to live off campus, even now.
• Beta Chi chapter at Bucknell University petitioned to become a new chapter in 1947. Installation took place in February 1948.
• Nancy Owen Craig, author of Alpha Phi Toujours, the second volume of Alpha Phi’s history book series, attended Bucknell in 1958 and was a member of the Beta Chi chapter. Nancy was the executive director of the Alpha Phi Foundation from 1995 to 2002. She came out of retirement to become the executive director of Sigma Sigma Sigma Foundation in Virginia and in 2005 was named the Outstanding Foundation Professional by the North-American Interfraternity Conference Foundation. In 2007, she began a cooperative arrangement to work for both foundations as a major gift fundraiser, finally retiring again (this time for good) in 2014. The Alpha Phi Foundation’s Nancy O. Craig Philanthropist of the Year Award, first given that year, is named in her honor.
• When the chapter was installed, new member classes for all groups were small. Fifteen to twenty women were considered a large group. Each sorority had its own “suite,” and they were quite small. The suite room could hold 40 members, tightly packed in. Now the Hunt Hall building has been remodeled. Bucknell women’s fraternities, now running about 150-200 members, still are headquartered in the Hunt Hall dormitory, but meetings are held in various large campus rooms.
• Nancy Owen Craig – Foundation Board
• Dorothy Morgan Effron – International Executive Board
• Dorothy Morgan Effron - 1986 Ursa Major Award Winner
• Karen Beatty – 1988 Ursa Major Award Winner
• Susan Robertson Cunnold – 2000 Ursa Major Award Winner
