Kappa Alpha Theta (ΚΑΘ), also known as Theta, is an international fraternity for women founded on January 27, 1870 at DePauw University, formerly Indiana Asbury. The organization currently has over 125 chapters at colleges and universities across the United States and Canada with a total initiated membership of nearly 210,000. Kappa Alpha Theta was founded in 1870 to give women a support group in the then mostly male college world at Indiana Asbury, now DePauw University. Indiana Asbury, as the university was known then, officially opened its doors to women in 1867, thirty years after the college was first established. Four women, Elizabeth McReynolds Locke Hamilton (Bettie Locke), Alice Olive Allen Brant (Alice Allen), Elizabeth Tipton Lindsey (Bettie Tipton), and Hannah Virginia Fitch Shaw (Hannah Fitch), sought to create an organization for women that would provide the encouragement and support that would draw women to coeducational colleges. Copyright © Kappa Alpha Theta © All photographs and copy reserved.