Home / Guides / What is Phi Chi Theta
Guide
What is Phi Chi Theta?
The short version, the national history, and what the SMU chapter does with it.
Phi Chi Theta (ΦΧΘ) is a national professional business fraternity founded in 1924. It is coeducational and open to students pursuing careers in business and related fields. Chapters at universities across the country run career programming, guest speakers, philanthropy and social events. At SMU, the Alpha Gamma Chapter is open to all majors, meets at the Cox School of Business, and recruits each fall and spring.
The name and the letters
Phi Chi Theta is written ΦΧΘ in Greek letters. Members and most people on campus shorten it to PCT. It is a fraternity in the older sense of the word, a brotherhood, and it has been coeducational since long before that was common, so members of any gender are called brothers. The colors are purple and gold.
National history
Phi Chi Theta was founded in 1924 as a professional fraternity for students in business and economics. It is one of a small number of national professional business fraternities, alongside Delta Sigma Pi and Alpha Kappa Psi, that have chapters at universities across the United States. The mission has stayed consistent for a century: prepare members for careers in business through professional development, service and a lasting network.
We are deliberately not reciting more national detail here. The national organization's own site is the source for that, and this page is about what the fraternity means for an SMU student.
Professional, not social
The word fraternity makes people picture a house on the Boulevard. Phi Chi Theta is not that. There is no house. Recruitment is an application, not a bid. Meetings look like a workshop with a speaker, not a party. Members often belong to a social chapter as well, and there is no conflict between the two. The guide to professional fraternities at SMU covers the difference in detail.
Phi Chi Theta at SMU
The chapter at Southern Methodist University is the Alpha Gamma Chapter, which describes itself as SMU's professional business fraternity. It is open to all majors. Chapter meetings are typically held at the Cox School of Business. Through the year the chapter brings Dallas firms in to speak (Holiner Holdings is one that has), runs an annual campus philanthropy called Pie Chi Theta that raises money for the SPCA, holds a spring formal, and recruits new members at the start of each fall and spring semester.
Brothers have landed internships and full time roles at Morgan Stanley, JLL, Visa, Texas Capital Bank, Hilltop Securities, Lockton, USGA, the U.S. Department of Energy, Jackson Walker, Douglas Elliman, Northmarq, D CEO, Brasfield & Gorrie, CyrusOne, Origin Bank and Billabong. The chapter page has the full picture.
What membership involves
Weekly chapter meetings, a few required events each semester, dues, and whatever you take on beyond that: a committee, an officer role, organizing the philanthropy. In return you get the speakers, the interview prep, the upperclassmen and the alumni. The chapter does not promise a job. It promises a room full of people who are trying to get one and will help you get yours.
How to join at SMU
Attend an Info Session during recruitment, go to the Meet the Brothers night, and submit the application on this site. Fall recruitment usually runs in the first weeks of September; spring dates are posted on @pct.smu in January. The recruitment guide walks through every step.
If the next question is where to live, PonyUp Properties helps SMU students with that.