Mu Phi Epsilon (ΜΦΕ) is a coeducational international professional music fraternity. It boasts over 75,000 members in 160 collegiate chapters and 64 alumni chapters in the US and abroad. Mu Phi Epsilon was founded November 13, 1903 at the Metropolitan College of Music in Cincinnati, Ohio by Dr. Winthrop Sterling, a professor at the school and a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia fraternity, and Elizabeth Matthias Fuqua, his 19-year-old assistant, as a way of recognizing the musicianship and scholarship of those eligible. The Baton Rouge Alumni Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon humbly requests your support as we work to foster the ideals of service to school and community, promote high scholarship, musicianship, and friendship through service, and provide opportunities for strong artistic and personal abilities. Your sponsorship of community events will assist the organization in our efforts to continuously promote musicianship, friendship and harmony not only at Southern University, but also in the Baton Rouge community at large.

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The first chapter, now Alpha chapter, included thirteen women. Originally chartered as a national music sorority, Mu Phi Epsilon changed its status in 1936 to become an honor society, and again in 1944 to function as a professional music sorority. Federal regulations (specifically Title IX) in the early 1970s opened all such societies to coeducational membership. In 1977 its official status changed for the final time to a coeducational professional music fraternity. Membership is limited to music majors and minors, music faculty not already initiated as members in another professional music fraternity, and musicians of achievement who have never joined a professional music fraternity and who desire membership through Special Election of active chapter members. Members are drawn from a diverse range of musical fields, including education, performance, therapy, and technology.

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The Beta Zeta Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon at Southern University and A&M College in Baton Rouge, Louisiana was charted on April 23, 1966 and installed at 1:30PM. The installing officers at the time were the National President, Janet A. Wilkie and the National Eligibility Advisor Ms. Virgina Hoogenakker. The first faculty advisors of the Beta Zeta Chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon were Ms. Frances Marsh, along with Dr.Rebecca Cureau and Ms. Helen Gist. These faculty members helped charter the chapter with seventeen undergraduate charter members.

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The charter members are:

• Barbara Kilgore: the first Beta Zeta Chapter President

• Joyce Banks

• Ida Barbier

• Easter Coleman

• Gloria Dunn

• Bertha Garrett

• Janice Guntz

• Bettye Jamison

• Joyce Kidd

• Margaret Lee

• Valmarie Ligon

• Bobbie Moffett

• Barbara Perry

• Carol Stemley

• Berdinia Tolliver

• Sue Webb

• Eloise Wyche