Founded on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley on May 8, 1909, Beta Phi Alpha began as Bid-A-Wee, a group created to meet the needs of a "very difficult housing situation" (Miner, p. 144).

[2] On 24 Nov, 1919, the group chose to rename themselves as a Greek letter organization with the name Kappa Phi Alpha (University of California Chronicle, p. 38).

But within a year, discovering that a men's fraternity in Boston had been operating under those letters, in 1920, the sorority took on its final name, Beta Phi Alpha.

The 1919 date appears to be the juncture where the group, now solidly interested in connecting with other campus organizations, began to establish structures that would aid such growth.

(Miner, p. 144)The Creed of Beta Phi Alpha was: We believe in service, the keynote of our daily lives, the foundation of our Fraternity and its power to reveal the worth of woman.

We pray for grace to meet success with humility, for strength and courage to rise above failure with spirit renewed, for wisdom to judge man by the spiritual values he may possess.

Its flower was the yellow tea rose.The fraternity's open motto was "Scientia, Virtus, Amicitia" or "Knowledge, Virtue, Friendship" Its publication was Aldebaran.