Timeline

Michigan State University is established as a public land-grant research university with the name Agricultural College of the State of Michigan and governed by the Michigan State Board of Education.

Michigan Agricultural College is dedicated. The first classes are held the net day, May 14, 1857, with five faculty members teaching 63 students in three buildings, including a horse barn. The college is the first institution of higher learning in the United States to teach scientific agriculture.

Agricultural College of the State of Michigan is renamed the Michigan State Agricultural College.

Michigan Agricultural College students and faculty begin enlisting in the Union Army. Ninety-six students, faculty, and State Board of Agriculture members go on to serve in the Civil War.

The Michigan Agricultural College apple orchard, first planted in 1858, produces fruit for the first time in 1865.

Edited by Frank Burton of the class of 1868, the student newspaper The Bubble is published for the first time. After Burton's graduation, The Bubble ceases publication.

Michigan Agricultural College admits its first 10 women students, who begin classes on February 23, 1870. They are Isabel Allen, Catherine Bacon, Ella Brock, Mary Daniells, Harriet Dexter, Gertrude Howe, Emma Hume, Mary Jones, Elizabeth Sessions, and Catherine Steele. The first woman to graduate, Eva Coryell, receives her degree in 1879.

Alpha Phi is founded by 10 young women at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

Four international students are admitted to Michigan Agricultural College for the first time. They are John Macara from Canada, Nagatane Soma and Tunetaro Yamou from Japan, and William Nygh from Holland.

Temperance and women's suffrage leader Frances E. Willard becomes the first alumna initiate.

The first convention is held in Syracuse, New York. Seven delegates were in attendance: six Syracuse (Alpha) members and Jessie King (Beta - Northwestern).

Alpha Chapter builds a chapter house at 207 University Place. They are the first women's fraternity in the country to build and occupy their own chapter house.

The Alpha Phi Quarterly, an award-winning magazine published continuously to the present day, is established.

Two alumnae chapters, Boston and Chicago, are officially chartered at the 1889 Convention.

Linda Landon, the first woman to work as an instructor at Michigan Agricultural College, is hired in 1891, beginning her 41-year career at the institution. She teaches classes in the English department and serves as the college librarian, developing the first cataloging system used at the college. The first woman with the rank of professor, Edith McDermott, is hired in 1895 to teach Domestic Economy and Household Science.

Alpha Phi becomes the first women's fraternity to use "traveling delegates," now known as Educational Leadership Consultants. Carrie Jones Sauber (Alpha-Syracuse) is the first such traveling delegate.

The Alpha Phi new member pin, "to take the form of a silver or green enameled ivy leaf" engraved with the letters Alpha and Phi, is adopted at the 1898 Convention.

William O. Thompson becomes the first known African American graduate from Michigan Agricultural College. Myrtle Craig, the first African American woman to graduate from the college, receives her degree on May 31, 1907, from President Theodore Roosevelt, the commencement speaker.

The standard gold badge used today is approved at the 1906 Convention in Syracuse, New York.

Stage Agricultural College is renamed Michigan State Agricultural College.

The 1918 Convention is cancelled due to World War I.

The influenza outbreak of 1918 strikes Michigan State College, killing 18 people on campus. Barracks in the Student Army Training Corps are turned into a quarantine hospital and the student body is separated by gender to prevent the spread of disease from an Army detachment in the area to women students.

After the creation of the position was approved at the 1920 Convention, Romaine Loar (Beta - Northwestern) becomes Alpha Phi's first National Executive Secretary and sets up the first National Headquarters office in New York City.

By the 50th anniversary of Alpha Phi's founding, the Fraternity had accumulated a $50,000 endowment fund. It was the first women's fraternity endowment fund to reach this milestone.

With a housing shortage on college campuses, chapters began building, purchasing, or renting houses at an unprecedented rate.

Alpha Phi publishes the first book-length history by a women's fraternity.

Beta Beta Chapter opens a tea shop called the Green Parrot Inn at Michigan Agricultural College. Chapter members prepare and serve food at the shop, which caters to both students and the general public.

Fraternity headquarters moves to Detroit after the election of Ruth Abbott Jones. This would be the last time the headquarters would move with the election of a new International President, as had been the custom for several decades. The Fraternity's headquarters would remain in Detroit until 1946.

Beta Beta Chapter adapts the hope chest raffle to the challenges of the Great Depression, cutting the price of tickets in half while raising as much money as in the previous year. All proceeds went to the chapter house fund.

District conventions are cancelled due to the effects of the Great Depression.

Beta Beta Chapter hosts mothers of chapter members for a luncheon.

Beta Beta Chapter begins a tradition of celebrating Father's Day. Fathers of chapter members visit campus for a baseball game and a special dinner.

Beta Beta Chapter builds a new house at 616 M.A.C. Avenue in East Lansing, Michigan. Construction is completed in 1939. This house is still used by the chapter today.

Beta Beta Chapter hosts the 1939 District II Convention, welcoming delegates to the chapter house. Jane Musselman (Beta Beta - Michigan State University) directs a workshop on chapter organization.

The 1942 Convention, which had been scheduled for San Antonio, Texas, is cancelled due to World War II.

District conventions are cancelled due to World War II.

No convention is planned or held in 1944 due to World War II.

Fraternity headquarters moves from Detroit to Evanston, Illinois - just north of Chicago - to a building at 317 Howard Street.

Beta Beta Chapter organizes a cardiac aid booth on campus ito raise money for the National Heart Association.

Fraternity headquarters stays in Evanston, but moves to expanded quarters at 518-26 Davis Street.

Beta Beta Chapter hosts an Easter party for underprivileged children in Lansing, Michigan, including a special buffet and an Easter egg hunt.

Clara Bradley Burdette, the last living Founder of Alpha Phi, dies at the age of 98.

Fraternity headquarters, remaining in Evanston, moves to a two-story colonial house at 634 Foster Street.

The Michigan State University Board of Trustees becomes the governing body of the institution.

Malcolm X visits Michigan State University and speaks to students, faculty, and the local press, touching on the Civil Rights Movement and James Meredith.

A hundred commemorative gavels are created from the cherry and birch stair railing of the first Alpha Chapter house and are presented to collegiate chapters that they might serve as a "continued reminder of Alpha Phi ideals which have stayed so constant over the past years."

Dr. Clifton R. Wharton Jr. becomes the 14th president of Michigan State University. He is the first African American president of a major university in the United States.

Alpha Phi celebrates 100 years with events throughout the United States and Canada, culminating in the Centennial Convention in Arlington, Virginia.

The executive office moves to its new home at 1930 Sherman Avenue. The building, built specifically as the executive office of Alpha Phi, still serves as the Fraternity's home today.

RESPOND: A Forum for Supportive Action, an anti-victimization education program dealing with alcohol abuse, acquaintance rape, eating disorders, suicide, hazing, and harassment is introduced.

Risk management education is introduced to collegians.

Alpha Phi introduces a peer education program for AIDS education.

Alpha Phi becomes the first NPC member to have a website.

Alpha Phi member Laura Malley-Schmitt (Zeta Phi - MIT) invents the RPC Alternative Method for Release Figures Management, which is now used for Panhellenic recruitment nationwide.

Lou Anna K. Simon becomes the first woman president of Michigan State University.

Alpha Phi becomes the first women's fraternity to develop a values-based leadership institute for emerging leaders based on women's developmental leadership theory.

Beta Beta Chapter hosts its inaugural Red Dress Ball, raising over $6,000 for the Alpha Phi Foundation.

Alpha Phi becomes the first NPC member to produce an educational podcast.

Beta Beta Chapter establishes Alpha Phi Heart Week, which includes a blood drive, T-shirt sales, and a campus walk to raise money and awareness for heart health.

Beta Beta Chapter finishes first in the 2012 Michigan State University Greek Week.

Beta Beta Chapter raises more than $15,000 for the Alpha Phi Foundation with its annual Red Dress Ball.

President Barack Obama signs the Agriculture Act of 2014, also known as the Farm Bill, at Michigan State University's Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center.