Delta Phi Epsilon was founded...

"for the purpose of promoting good fellowship among sorority women...

to help... in acquiring knowledge, appreciation, discriminating judgment,

and a true feeling of sisterly love through the interaction of sympathetic

and friendly natures."  - From the notes of our Founders, 1917

On March 17, 1917 five women at the New York University School of Law took a pledge of loyalty and founded the Delta Phi Epsilon Sorority, the first nonsectarian social sorority (meaning non-discriminatory of race or religion) and the only to be founded at a professional school. These five women were, Dorothy Cohen Schwartzman, Ida Bienstock Landau, Mina Goldsmith Mahler, Eva Effron Robin, and Sylvia Steirman Cohn, we call them the "DIMES". On March 17, 1922 Delta Phi Epsilon was formally incorporated under the laws of the State of New York. On December 5, 1922, Delta Phi Epsilon crossed international boundaries and founded the first Canadian chapter at McGill University at Montreal.

Each year on March 17, undergraduates and alumnae celebrate Founders Day, honoring the women to whom each chapter of Delta Phi Epsilon is directly indebted for the establishment of our sisterhood. We honor them for the ideals and purposes that inspired them. After almost 100 years after Delta Phi Epsilon was founded, there are women who still embrace the beliefs of our founders by sharing sisterhood in their hearts and lives.