Phi Beta Kappa Celebrates 50 Years at UAlbany with New Inductees
ALBANY, N.Y. (May 16, 2024) —Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) at UAlbany celebrated its 50th anniversary on May 9 as it honored its newest members of undergraduate students who were welcomed into the society.
The Phi Beta Kappa Society honors the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates from 293 top schools across the nation through a highly selective, merit-based invitation process. This year’s new members include 46 students from UAlbany who are all members of the graduating class of 2024.
The UAlbany PBK chapter also welcomed President Havidán Rodríguez as an honorary member during the ceremony.
Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is recognized as America's most prestigious academic honor society.
The ceremony included remarks from former Phi Beta Kappa Society President Catherine White Berheide as well as a poetry reading from UAlbany Professor Emeritus, SUNY Citizen Academic Laureate and Phi Beta Kappa member Leonard Slade, Jr.
“To the students who are being inducted and your families I offer my warmest congratulations. Your achievement speaks volumes about your ability, your perseverance and your dedication,” said White Berheide, who is the Skidmore College Tisch Family Distinguished Professor of Sociology. “On behalf of the Phi Beta Kappa Society I wish you every success and may you always embody what Phi Beta Kappa represents: Learning for all of life. We cannot wait to see what that means for each of you.”
“At the University at Albany we strive to educate engaged global citizens,” said President Rodríguez to the new inductees. “Take a critical look at the issues, the challenges, and the problems we confront as a global society and use your liberal arts degree to make a difference.”
The Phi Beta Kappa chapter at the University at Albany, Alpha Alpha of New York, was founded in 1974 through the effort of History Professor DeWitt Ellinwood and a University committee.
Not long after, a group of dedicated UAlbany Phi Beta Kappa members from UAlbany endowed a fund to award a prize to the highest-ranking graduating member of the Alpha Alpha chapter of New York.
The founders were: M.E. Grenander, James W. Corbett, Helen and Bernard Horowitz, Catherine Newbold, Kendall A. Birr, Jarka and Grayce Burian, and Mary Goggin.
The original society was founded on December 5, 1776, when a group of students at the College of William and Mary in Virginia met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern, Williamsburg, Virginia to form the first chapter.
Additional Phi Beta Kappa branches were formed at Yale in 1780 and Harvard in 1781, ensuring the survival of the Society when the parent chapter at William and Mary became inactive.
During the following half century, four more chapters were founded: at Dartmouth, Union, Bowdoin and Brown.
Today there are currently 293 individual chapters, with new chapters admitted every three years after careful scrutiny. A national body, now called the Phi Beta Kappa Association, was organized in 1883, in response to the recognition of the need for closer unity among chapters and greater uniformity of practices. The 1883 meeting was held in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
At UAlbany, the PBK chapter looks forward to inducting UAlbany students into Phi Beta Kappa for another 50 years and beyond.