History of Phi Kappa Tau

Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity (commonly called Phi Tau) was founded in the Union Literary Society Hall of Miami University’s Old Main Building in Oxford, Ohio on March 17, 1906. The four honored founders were Taylor Albert Borradaile, Clinton Dewitt Boyd, Dwight Ireneus Douglass, and William Henry Shideler.

The fraternity was founded as the Non-Fraternity Association to give Miami’s non-fraternity men a voice in campus political affairs. The name was changed to Phrenocon on March 6, 1909. The two proposed names were the Miami Friends and the Miami Comrades, which were combined to form “Frenocom.” “Phrenocon” was actually an alternate spelling of “Frenocom,” the idea being to make the name sound more Greek.

Phrenocon became “national” in 1911 when an organization of independent men known as the Ohio University Union chose to become the Ohio University chapter of Phrenocon. Additional Phrenocon chapters were established at Ohio State University, Centre College, Mount Union College and the University of Illinois. At Miami, Phrenocon began to have difficulty retaining members by the early 1910s. Often, men would join Phrenocon, then later withdraw their membership and join Greek-letter fraternities. In fact, the Miami chapters of Delta Tau Delta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon were founded by Phrenocon members. For that reason, the Miami Chapter of Phrenocon withdrew from the National Phrenocon and adopted the name Phi Kappa Tau on March 9, 1916. The rest of the chapters agreed to the name change on December 22 of that year and invited Miami to return to the national organization as the Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Tau. Eta Chapter at Muhlenberg College was the first chapter to charter after the change to Phi Kappa Tau.

Phi Kappa Tau has been a member since 1916 of the North-American Interfraternity Conference(NIC), a consortium of national men’s social fraternities. As of November 2004, there are 89 active chapters and 5 colonies across the United States with approximately 83,000 initiated members.

Phi Tau’s national philanthropy is the SeriousFun Network founded by Phi Tau Brother Paul Newman.

The Phi Kappa Tau Foundation was created in 1945 and is one of the more successful foundations affiliated with a Greek letter organization. The Foundation’s significant expansion began in 1983 with the announcement of a gift of over $1-million from Ewing T. Boles, a member of fraternity’s Delta Chapter at Centre College. The Boles gift was the largest gift to a fraternity or sorority foundation up until that time. That same year Boles was named an Honorary Founder by Phi Kappa Tau. Boles left an additional bequest of over $3-million to the Foundation upon his death. Boles’ example has encouraged countless other gifts to the foundation and its current assets exceed $10-million.

Executive offices of the Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity and Foundation are at 5221 Morning Sun Road in Oxford, Ohio.

Phi Kappa Tau now has over 100,000 initiated members.