About Us

Founded in 1872 by ten forward thinking women at Syracuse University, Alpha Phi International is now one of the oldest and largest women's fraternities in the world. The Beta Pi chapter here at the University of Southern California was founded in 1945. The sisterhood of Alpha Phi stretches from coast to coast through 171 collegiate campuses and more than 200,000 members. Sisters share a commitment to excellence and a strong desire to support one another and their communities. Alpha Phis are leaders, scholars, contributors and lifetime members of a sisterhood that values these traits.

 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Acknowledging the Problematic Past of Greek Organizations and Alpha Phi

In 1945, Alpha Phi was founded at the University of Southern California as an organization that was only accepting of white women. This systemic history of white supremacy and exclusivity has forged a barrier of entry for marginalized communities including (but not limited to) BIPOC, POC, and the LGBTQ+ community. In 2020, our organization chose to acknowledge our past mistakes and aim to move forward with open ears and active changes. Until 2020, Alpha Phi International Fraternity’s recruitment process accepted Letters of Recommendation and evaluated Legacy status as beneficial factors for Potential New Members. Letters of Recommendation and Legacy status are no longer factors in the recruitment process and will neither help, or hurt, Potential New Members in order to lessen obstacles and barriers of entry for all people. Many past policies such as the aforementioned have yielded consequences of white supremacy still being perpetuated in Greek life today. These issues lie in historical racial standard, microaggressions, and covert and overt racism. As an organization, Alpha Phi condemns this history and is actively committed to change. The Beta Pi Chapter of Alpha Phi is simultaneously determined to hold our own chapter accountable to these changes and encourages other chapters to do the same.

Our Initiatives for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We are committed to radically changing fundamental aspects of our chapter- starting by dismantling our flawed foundation and cultivating a new code of ethics to embody our values. The Beta Pi chapter of Alpha Phi acknowledges and holds itself accountable to the elitism, tokenism, white supremacy, lack of social activism, and racial biases that are deeply ingrained into the core of the chapters of the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) and the Interfraternity Council (IFC) at USC as a whole, including our own. As Beta Pi Chapter of Alpha Phi continually reassesses our culture and traditions to better fit our goals of Diversity, we intend to keep ourselves accountable to these goals, pledging to carry the momentum of social change and demonstrate it in our contributions to our community. Finally, to highlight some of our significant changes:

• The Executive Board of Beta Pi, along with the new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Board has radically evaluated and modified the recruitment processes to internalize and reflect diversity, inclusion, and equity. This includes the incorporation of pronouns for actives on their nametags, prohibiting obscene displays of wealth in outfits, and removing non-inclusive hairstyling expectations, such as heat styling, from recruitment guidelines.

• Alpha Phi nationally has moved to eliminate Letters of Recommendations and Legacy policies for consideration for recruitment.

• Beta Pi is reassessing its budget to better accommodate for financial differences for members and will begin offering scholarships that were fundraised through the chapter to new members and active members beginning in Spring 2022.

• The DEI Board hosts chapter-wide events, book clubs, and workshops to thoroughly educate our members about microaggressions, tokenism, and racial biases to scrutinize our own culture and rectify it moving forward. The Beta Pi Chapter is additionally developing meaningful relationships with non-Panhellenic organizations and groups to further encourage inclusivity and education.

• The Beta Pi chapter of Alpha Phi employs anonymous internal reporting measures and suggestion platforms to support any members with diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns.

• Members of our chapters are celebrated for their differences, and we currently host open dialogue for various socio-cultural identities and backgrounds within our chapter.

• Last but not least, Beta Pi of Alpha Phi is committed to holding our members strictly accountable to embodying our DEI initiatives.