Phi Beta Kappa Initiates New Members

This past November, Auburn University’s chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, Gamma of Alabama, held its first initiation ceremony since the chapter moved into the Honors College last year.

Phi Beta Kappa (PBK) is the nation’s oldest academic honor society, with membership reserved for a small percentage of undergraduates at a fraction of all degree-granting institutions. Founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary, the society is devoted to excellence in the traditional liberal arts and sciences and to freedom of inquiry, embracing the motto “Love of Learning is the Guide of Life.” In 2001, the national organization of PBK selected Auburn University to shelter a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa after a rigorous, multiyear review. Since then, the Gamma Chapter of Alabama has initiated several hundred undergraduates into the society.

growing membership

To be invited to membership, students must have demonstrated excellence in their studies across a range of traditional liberal arts and sciences. This year, following a careful scrutiny of transcripts and a vote by the chapter’s resident members, 48 students accepted invitations to membership in the chapter, 35 of whom attended the ceremony at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Pebble Hill.

“The mission of Phi Beta Kappa meshes very nicely with that of the Honors College,” said Laura Stevens, Honors College director. “So we were delighted when the provost asked us to provide an administrative home for the chapter.” A member of PBK herself, Stevens said she is eager to elevate the chapter’s identity on campus. “It’s been such a pleasure to work with the officers in expanding our programming, and the provost’s staff have offered amazing support in planning the initiation ceremony. My hope is that we can develop our programming more every year so that Phi Beta Kappa can contribute more to the intellectual life of the university and so that students and their families fully feel the magnitude of what it means to be invited to membership.”

a special guest

The day before the 2025 initiation ceremony, the chapter invited Kevin Hughes, professor of historical theology and chair of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University, to deliver the chapter’s Gamma Founders Lecture, “Sacred Disruptions: Caravaggio, Mysticism, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation.” At the initiation itself, Eden McLean, associate professor of history and president of the chapter, convened the ceremony by invoking the society’s longstanding traditions, as she called on David Carter, associate professor of history and vice president of the chapter, to lead the initiates into the building before reading the society’s history.

Hughes then delivered a brief exhortation to the initiates. While acknowledging the widespread assertion that study in the liberal arts inculcates critical thinking skills, he offered a bolder argument about the value of these fields and the habits and outlooks they instill. “The contemplative dispositions — the openness toward wonder and the humility to know how much we don’t know — are the real and lasting gifts of an education in the liberal arts and sciences,” he said, adding that these gifts are ones the world “will need more than ever.”

a bright future

Following the address, McLean led the initiates through a recitation of their pledge to the society, while Elijah Gaddis, associate professor of history and chapter secretary, called each initiate to sign the chapter’s book, and David Riese, professor of drug discovery and development and chapter treasurer, taught each initiate the society’s handshake.

“It was wonderful to recognize these exemplary students,” McLean said, “and we are so pleased to see this collaboration between Phi Beta Kappa and the Honors College moving forward.”

Later this month, on Jan. 29, the chapter will host Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist Ed Yong to deliver the first Anne and David Laband Phi Beta Kappa Lecture, “The Amazing Nature of Animal Senses.”