Dear Clemson:
One of Clemson University's 2011 goals is to establish a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and on March 6-8, we will host a Phi Beta Kappa visiting team who will help determine if our application is successful.
Founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary, Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most well-known honor society in the United States. With 270 chapters across the country, Phi Beta Kappa has become the nation's leading advocate for the liberal arts and sciences at the undergraduate level.
While Clemson has more than 30 distinguished honors societies on campus, the addition of a Phi Beta Kappa chapter would bring even more recognition to the university and our students. Phi Beta Kappa sets high standards not only for those elected to membership but also for the institutions that house chapters. Having a Phi Beta Kappa chapter would place us in line with our peers and Top 20 institutions, allow us to recognize excellent undergraduate students, and help us recruit top students and faculty.
While at Clemson, the visiting team will meet with members of the administration, deans and department chairs, Faculty Senate officers, Phi Beta Kappa members in our faculty and staff, and student groups. They will visit facilities and review resumes, publications, and research projects of faculty and students. They may strike up conversations with faculty and staff as they walk around campus. Please extend to these visitors the same courtesy that you would extend to a SACS accreditation team, as this visit is every bit as important as a SACS visit.
Here are some additional facts about Clemson's application. To obtain a chapter, at least 10 percent of an institution's "College of Arts and Sciences" teaching faculty must be Phi Beta Kappa members. For the purpose of Clemson's application, we created a "virtual" College of Arts and Sciences that includes departments from four colleges. This is an acceptable practice for institutions that do not have a formal College of Arts and Sciences. Forty-four of the 429 faculty in Clemson's virtual college are Phi Beta Kappa members for 10.26 percent. There are 30 additional faculty and staff who are Phi Beta Kappa keyholders.
Please remember that this process is important to Clemson's vision of being one of the nation's top 20 public universities, and help in any way that you can.
The departments in our virtual Liberal Arts and Science College include:
Biological Sciences, Genetics and Biochemistry, Horticulture Communication Studies, English, History and Geography, Languages, Philosophy and Religion Economics, Management, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology Chemistry, Computer Science, Mathematical Sciences, Physics
"What does The Phi Beta Kappa Society do?"
For more than 200 years, the Phi Beta Kappa Society has pursued its mission of fostering and recognizing excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. The Society's distinctive emblem, a golden key, is widely recognized as a symbol of academic achievement. Through the time-honored process of granting charters to the institutions that shelter Phi Beta Kappa chapters, the Society reaffirms that mission.
The chapters and their community counterparts, the associations, work with the national office to sustain a variety of programs that honor and champion liberal arts scholarship. These activities, whether local or national, provide support in the form of scholarships, lectureships, book and essay awards, summer institutes for teachers, and funds for visiting scholars. Each year Phi Beta Kappa, with its affiliates, raises and distributes over $1,000,000 to benefit students and scholars through these programs. The Key Reporter is the Society's quarterly newsletter.
The Society's respected publication, The American Scholar, has been published quarterly, for general circulation, since 1932. Widely recognized as an important forum in American intellectual life, the journal offers articles and essays on a range of literary, artistic, and scientific subjects. Credited by many for the current revival of the essay, The American Scholar has garnered an exceptional number of awards in that genre.
"What does Phi Beta Kappa stand for?"
Phi Beta Kappa are the initials of the Greek motto Philosophia Biou Kubernetes, "Love of wisdom, the guide of life."
"Chapters" Phi Beta Kappa chapters are granted to the Phi Beta Kappa members of the faculty and administration of the sheltering institution.
Over 15,000 new members, usually students in their senior year of undergraduate work, are elected each year. Each chapter elects new members every year, both in the fall and in the spring, and initial ceremonies are usually held at this time.
Applications for new chapters are accepted on a triennial basis following a lengthy process of documentation by the Phi Beta Kappa members of the applying institution's faculty and administrative staff.
A great web site for anyone who wants to learn more about Phi Beta Kappa is http://www.pbk.org/.
For more information, contact Jens Holley at 656-5177 (holley@clemson.edu) or Debra Jackson at 656-4592 (dbj@clemson.edu).
Sincerely,
James F. Barker, FAIA
President