Pi Kappa Alpha

Pi Kappa Alpha (ΠΚΑ) is a Greek letter social fraternity with over 220 chapters and colonies and over 250,000 lifetime initiates in the United States and Canada.

History
Pi Kappa Alpha was founded at the University of Virginia on March 1, 1868 by Robertson Howard, Julian Edward Wood, James Benjamin Sclater Jr., Frederick Southgate Taylor, Littleton Waller Tazewell Bradford and William Alexander. On March 1, 1869, exactly one year after the Alpha Chapter at the University of Virginia was formed, the Beta Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha was founded at Davidson College. After almost a decade of decline, Pi Kappa Alpha was "re-founded" as part of the Hampden-Sydney Convention, held in a dorm room at Hampden–Sydney College. The four delegates to the Hampden-Sydney Convention are referred to as the Junior Founders. Pi Kappa Alpha was not originally organized as a sectional fraternity, however by constitutional provision it became so in 1889. It remained a southern fraternity until the New Orleans Convention in 1909, Pi Kappa Alpha officially declared itself a national organization.

In 1948, Pi Kappa Alpha established and chartered the "Pi Kappa Alpha Memorial Foundation" as a non-profit organization in Tennessee. The foundation was to provide scholarships, maintain a fraternity library and provide a memorial headquarters for civic use.

Originally, Pi Kappa Alpha's membership was restricted to white men, but this restriction was removed in 1964. Pi Kappa Alpha's move to start a colony at the historically black Howard University in 2006 was opposed by many students and alumni due to this discriminatory history as well as racist incidents in 1999 at Auburn University and 2004 at Georgia State University.

Rituals
Its rituals are based on Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

The Shield and Diamond
The Shield and Diamond is the official quarterly publication of Pi Kappa Alpha, which was first printed in December 1890 by Robert Adger Smythe, the then Grand Secretary and Treasurer, under the name "The Pi Kappa Alpha Journal". The name was later changed to "The Shield and Diamond" in 1891.

Pike University
Pike University refers to the collection of leadership programs that forms the foundation of Pi Kappa Alpha's educational curriculum.

The Pike Foundation
Founded in 1948, the Pike Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides funding to the fraternity and its chapters for leadership programs, scholarships, and chapter house facilities. The Pike Foundation also maintains and operates the Memorial Headquarters in Memphis, Tennessee. It is a war memorial built in 1988 to recognize the military services rendered by Pi Kappa Alpha members during World War II. A Gold Star Memorial was dedicated on August 1, 2008