About Phi Beta Kappa
Founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, Phi
Beta Kappa is the nation's oldest honorary society, with chapters at 249 of the
foremost institutions of higher education across the country. One cannot "apply"
for membership. Almost all members are elected by the chapters from candidates
for degrees in liberal arts and sciences, usually from the top 10 percent of the
graduating class. The Society was the first to adopt Greek letters for a name and
to introduce the features that have characterized such organizations ever since,
including an oath of secrecy (discarded long ago), mottoes in Latin and Greek, a
code of laws, and an elaborate form of initiation.
The Society's name is formed
by the first letters of the phrase Philosophia Biou Kybemetes, Philosophy
[love of wisdom] is the Guide of Life. In line with Cardinal Newman's conviction that the
test of education lies not in what people know but in what they are, the
objectives of humane learning encouraged by Phi Beta Kappa include not merely
knowledge but also intellectual honesty and tolerance, a broad range of
intellectual interests, and understanding.
Phi Beta Kappa members have always had
an influence that far outweighed their numbers. Among the first 50 members of the
Society were leaders in the American Revolution, delegates to the Constitutional
Convention in 1788, and members of the Continential Congress and the U.S.
Congress. Two of the founders became U.S. senators, and two became members of the
Supreme Court, Chief Jusfice John Marshall and Bushrod Washington. Sixteen U.S.
presidents are counted among the membership. Six were elected as undergraduates
(John Quincy Adams, Chester A. Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft,
George Bush, and Bill Clinton); the rest of the 16 were elected as alumni or
honorary members. Eleanor Roosevelt, elected to honorary membership in 1941, is
the only Phi Beta Kappa first lady. Among other notables of American history who
have earned the coveted key are Alexander Graham Bell, Cyrus McCormick, Charles
Evans Hughes, Pearl Buck, Henry W. Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James,
Helen Keller, Helen Wills Moody, Paul Robeson, George Santayana, William Henry
Seward, Booker T. Washington, Daniel Webster, and Eli Whitney.
Phi Beta Kappa has come to recognize
three classes of members: members in course (student members), alumni members,
and honorary members.
- Members in course are elected from candidates for degrees
in liberal arts and sciences, usually from the upper tenth of the graduating
class. In addition to achieving an outstanding academic record, students must
have pursued a broad program of study in the liberal arts and sciences to be
eligible for election. A few chapters at universities with doctoral programs in
the liberal arts and sciences also elect graduate student members. Almost all
members elected each year are members in course.
- Alumni/alumnae members are
elected from among the graduates of the sheltering institution. Ordinarily they
have been graduated at least ten years and are thought to merit recognition for
scholarly accomplishment after graduation.
- Honorary members are elected from
outside the student and alumni bodies of the sheltering institution and are
chosen on substantially the same basis as alumni/alumnae members.
Many chapters
use the term immediate or resident members to indicate their current active
membership. They are usually the members of Phi Beta Kappa on the faculty and
administration, including those elected by other chapters, and undergraduate
members in course. Some chapters also include Phi Beta Kappa graduate students in
their resident membership.
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