Delta Kappa Phi


Delta Kappa Phi is a professional–social collegiate fraternity established in 1899, and located in the United States. As of 2017 it has one active chapter.

History

Delta Kappa Phi was founded as a professional textile fraternity by six students at the Philadelphia Textile Institute in 1899. Though its founders initially planned to seek affiliation with a national fraternity, that plan was soon shelved and the organization expanded to other schools, focusing on institutions with textile programs. Its second chapter was chartered in 1902 at the Lowell Technological Institute, and the organization gradually established chapters at New Bedford Institute of Textiles and Technology, the Rhode Island School of Design, North Carolina State University, Georgia Tech, and the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. By 1979 the fraternity had contracted to just its UMass Lowell and North Carolina State chapters, however, in 1998 the UMass Dartmouth chapter was reactivated, only to be subsequently shuttered again.
In 1980 Steve Call, a pledge of Delta Kappa Phi at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, died after falling ill as the result of an intense program of hazing-related calisthenics he had been required to perform.
The character of the fraternity has significantly differed from school to school. While many of its chapters have been social fraternities with some characteristics of a professional fraternity, the chapters at North Carolina State and Georgia Tech have been primarily oriented as professional fraternities. It is the oldest textile fraternity in America.

Notable members