The Professional Fraternity Association (PFA) is an association of national, collegiate, professional fraternities and sororities that was formed in 1978. Since PFA groups are discipline-specific, members join while pursuing graduate (law, medicine, etc.) degrees as well as undergraduate (business, engineering, etc.) degrees. PFA groups seek to develop their members professionally in addition to the social development commonly associated with general fraternities. Membership requirements of the PFA are broad enough to include groups that do not recruit new members from a single professional discipline. The PFA has welcomed service and honor fraternities as members; however, Greek letter honor societies more commonly belong to the Association of College Honor Societies.
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History
The Professional Panhellenic Association (PPA), for women's groups, was founded in 1925, and the Professional Interfraternity Conference (PIC), for men's groups, was founded in 1928. These groups came about due to rapid growth among all types of fraternities during the late 1920s. On March 2–3, 1928, delegates from 27 professional fraternities came together in Washington, DC to organize the PIC. Jarvis Butler of Sigma Nu Phi was elected as the first president, and Stroud Jordan of Alpha Chi Sigma was elected as the first Secretary-treasurer.
The PFA resulted from the merger of the Professional Interfraternity Conference and the Professional Panhellenic Association in 1978. The merger itself was the result of the impact of Title IX on most fraternal groups with professional affiliations.
The most recent addition of member organizations was in the summer of 2013, when Phi Gamma Nu and Delta Kappa Alpha were approved for membership.
Current members
Current membership of active members as of January 31, 2016.
Former members
This includes the member organizations of the two former groups that merged to form the PFA and organizations not currently active within the PFA.