May 7, 2000

PHI BETA KAPPA

My father's educational aspirations for me began and ended with one thing: Phi Beta Kappa. He attended Alfred University in New York State in the 1930s, which had no chapter, and he never got over it.

So when the time came to pick a college for me, he went through the Lovejoy's College Guide with just two criteria. A school had to be cheap, and it had to have a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Which is how I came to attend Gettysburg College (Iota Chapter of Pennsylvania).

I don't endorse his method, but I certainly understood that election to the nation's oldest academic honor society (founded in 1776) was a very big deal. When I read in the society's newsletter, The Key Reporter, that at some universities no more than half of those elected to membership ever bothered to join, that was startling news indeed.

FBK started as a secret fraternity and literary debating society at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., but as it spread to more campuses during the 19th century it abandoned secrecy and, starting in 1875, began electing women. Its purpose is to recognize and to foster excellence in the study of the liberal arts and sciences. There are only 255 chapters, and the granting of new charters is a rigorous process.

Chapters choose prospective members who are in the top 10 percent of their graduating class, have studied mathematics and a foreign language, and taken at least three-quarters of their courses in the liberal arts.

The 500,000 current members include six of nine Supreme Court justices, as well as presidents Bush and Clinton.

The University of Colorado at Boulder, Alpha of Colorado, got its charter in 1904, along with Colorado College. The University of Denver was chartered in 1940, and Colorado State University in 1973.

Geraldine Bean, formerly both a professor of history and a member of the CU Board of Regents, is the secretary-treasurer of the CU chapter. Besides electing members, she said, the chapter presents lectures to help raise its visibility on campus, and also offers two $7,500 fellowships for graduate school, funded by a bequest from Katherine Bruderlin Crisp. She was elected to the chapter in 1906, taught for many years in Denver high schools, and was a founder of the Denver Botanical Gardens.

Bean said the minimum grade-point average for election ranges from 3.65 to 3.85, being higher for those who have more transfer credits. The chapter sent 110 invitations last fall, and 69 students were initiated; in the spring, there were 190 eligible and 123 joined at the April 23 ceremony.

Why don't students join? Sometimes, Bean says, they just don't get their invitation in the mail, because students don't always update their addresses. Or they've already been invited to join other honor societies and don't see the point. Foreign students, especially, don't know about this American tradition.

Douglas Ernest, a reference librarian at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, is secretary-treasurer of the CSU chapter. It initiated 79 student members April 26, plus one alumni member. A few more will join, he said, and eventually it will be about 60 percent of those eligible.

''To me, (the ceremony) is one of the high points of the academic year,'' Ernest said. ''Not to sound corny, but everybody is beaming. Most of them have family there.''

FBK membership is often a family affair. Bean said her twin grandsons were elected at Boulder, and The Key Reporter lists many multigenerational families. But recognizing high achievement by those who may be the first in their families to attend college, and so not familiar with FBK, is every bit as important. Both Bean and Ernest said their chapters try to get faculty members in the students' major to urge them to join.

One chapter secretary from Florida says they call not only students, but students' parents, and sometimes the students who thought initially they wouldn't join decide to do so after all. It's an offer I'd hope no one refuses.

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