Kappa Delta Pi, International Honor Society in Education, was founded in 1911 and was one of the first discipline-specific honor societies. Its membership is limited to the top 20 percent of those entering the field of education. Its motto is "Knowledge, Duty, Power," and its mission is to sustain an honored community of diverse educators by promoting excellence and advancing scholarship, leadership, and service.
Membership is open only to the top 20 percent of those entering the education field. In addition, undergraduates must have a 3.0 GPA, and graduate students a 3.25 GPA. Membership for active professionals varies.
Among those involved as Professional Members are superintendents and principals; early childhood, elementary, middle, and secondary school teachers; Professional School Counselors; university faculty and deans; graduate and doctoral students; nontraditional educators; retired educators; State Teachers of the Year; researchers; and other education specialists.
Kappa Delta (ΚΔ) was the first sorority founded at the State Female Normal School (now Longwood University), in Farmville, Virginia. It is one of the "Farmville Four" sororities founded at the university. (The others are Alpha Sigma Alpha, Sigma Sigma Sigma, and Zeta Tau Alpha; a clock tower at the university campus with a clock face representing each sorority is dedicated to the four).
Kappa Delta has over 230,000 members, more than 14,000 undergraduate members in 163 active collegiate chapters. Kappa Delta also has more than 510 chartered alumnae chapters, the most of any National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) group. It is headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee.
Lenora Ashmore Blackiston, Mary Sommerville Sparks Hendrick, Julia Gardiner Tyler Wilson, and Sara Turner White founded Kappa Delta on the beliefs of friendship, fellowship, and sisterly love.
About the Founders of ΚΔ:
Lenora was the first to propose the idea of forming a sorority. However, she was not able to leave much of a mark on the start of Kappa Delta due to her transfer to Randolph-Macon Women's College.