Phi Kappa Tau was founded in the Union Literary Society Hall of Miami University's Old Main Building in Oxford, Ohio on March 17, 1906. The four honored founders were:

» Taylor Albert Borradaile
» Clinton Dewitt Boyd
» Dwight Ireneus Douglass
» William Henry Shideler

Founded as the Non-Fraternity Association to give Miami's non-fraternity men a voice in campus political affairs, the organization changed its name to Phrenecon on March 6, 1909 because the name Non-Fraternity Association seemed too negative.

Phrenecon became "national" in 1911 when a second chapter was formed at Ohio University. Additional Phrenecon chapters were established at Ohio State University, Centre College (Danville, KY), Mount Union College (Alliance, OH) and the University of Illinois. At Miami, Phrenecon began to have difficuly retaining members by the early 'teens. Often, men joined Phrenecon, then later dropped their membership and joined Greek-letter fraternities. In fact, the Miami chapters of Delta Tau Delta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon were founded by Phrenecon members. For that reason, the Miami Chapter of Phrenecon withdrew from the National Phrenecon and adopted the name Phi Kappa Tau on March 9, 1916. The rest of the chapters agreed to the name change in December of that year and invited Miami to return to the national organization as the Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Tau.