Tau Beta Pi is the second oldest Greek-letter honor society in America, the oldest being Phi Beta Kappa. Phi Beta Kappa was f ... ounded in 1776 and all members were men in training for "the service of the church and state" who portrayed outstanding scholastic attainment. In 1883, an attempt to bring a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa to Lehigh University. At the same time, Phi Beta Kappa decided to restrict its membership to students in the liberal arts only. Due to this new restriction, a Professor Edward H. Williams, Jr. set out to create an honor society that would offer technical students the same recognition for superior scholarship as previously offered by Phi Beta Kappa. And thus Tau Beta Pi was founded on June 15th, 1885. There are now 253 collegiate chapters of Tau Beta Pi, which initiated over 580,000 members. Our Texas Mu chapter at the University of Texas at San Antonio was established in 2002. read more