Zeta Phi

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

With its installation on February 11, 1984, Zeta Phi chapter of Alpha Phi became the first national Panhellenic sorority at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

A local group of MIT women, organized as Club Amherst, asked why they, too, could not have an independent living unit like the fraternities, MIT agreed that the idea was sound and with the Club Amherst women initiated a search for a sorority. After initial screening, five Panhellenic sororities made campus presentations; Alpha Phi was chosen to become MIT’s first sorority.

Initiation week culminated on a Friday evening with the Court of Ivy Ceremony conducted by Phis from Tufts University. Afterwards the MIT women held a pajama party. Early the next morning in the MIT chapel, they were initiated in a ceremony conducted by former International President Phyllis Sims Selig (Gamma Delta-Kansas).

The Cambridge Hyatt Regency boasted the reception. Sally McCall Grant (Gamma-DePauw), International Vice-President Alumnae and MIT establishment coordinator, presided over the event. International President Nancy Wittgen Burks DeVoe (Gamma-DePauw) delivered greetings from the rest of Alpha Phi Fraternity. 

Nancy DeVoe, International President, conducted the chartering ceremony, then presented the signed and sealed charter to current chapter president Pam Gannon and founding president Kathleen Harragan. In celebration, the MIT member serenaded the reception guests with Alpha Phi songs.