Phi Beta Kappa was founded on December 5, 1776, by students at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. John Heath, the organization’s first president, aspired to create a serious-minded student society that would offer more than just convivial social opportunities. Tradition tells us that the undergraduates who founded Phi Beta Kappa met in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern, a reconstruction of which is now part of Colonial Williamsburg. Phi Beta Kappa’s founders also met in secret to give members the freedom to discuss any topic they
chose, no matter how controversial. The regimented curriculum typical of early American colleges
allowed little opportunity for this; hence, Phi Beta Kappa focused on “literary business,” that is, the holding of discussions and debates. Topics discussed ranged from history to politics to culture.
Notably, the members also debated “the justice of African slavery.” The specifics of their arguments are unknown. Phi Beta Kappa’s early development took place at a time when slavery fundamentally shaped American colleges and the nation’s revolutionary experiment. The uncritical participation in a slaveholding society by many early members reflects a serious moral failing.
The first span of the Society’s life at William and Mary was short, as the College had to close its doors on the approach of Cornwallis’s army in 1781. This closure might have ended the Society, but for its only non-Virginian member, Elisha Parmele, who persuaded fellow members to allow colleges in New England to charter chapters.

A native of Connecticut, Parmele carried the charters north and organized the Alpha of Connecticut at Yale on November 13, 1780, and the Alpha of Massachusetts at Harvard on September 5, 1781. The Alpha of New Hampshire at Dartmouth College followed in 1787, chartered by the members at Harvard with the consent of the members at Yale. These New England colleges formed the earliest collaborative network of chapters at the root of the modern PBK organization. The principle of establishing new branches by concurrent action of those already in existence was confirmed with the founding of the next three: Union College in 1817, Bowdoin College in 1825, and Brown University in 1830. Two more chapters were founded in Connecticut in 1845, the Beta chapter at Trinity College and Gamma chapter at Wesleyan University. The first collegiate society identified with a Greek letter name, Phi Beta Kappa introduced the essential characteristics of others that followed it: an oath of secrecy, a badge, mottoes in Greek and Latin, a code of laws, an elaborate form of initiation, a seal, and a special handshake. After anti-masonic agitation in 1831 prompted discussion about the oath, Harvard's chapter dropped the requirement for secrecy. This move probably saved the Society from further criticism and also helped to distinguish Phi Beta Kappa, with its intellectual emphasis, from social fraternities that made their appearance around that time. The Greek motto whose initial letters gave the Society its name –Philosophía Bíou Kybernétes: Love of learning is the guide of life – remained the same.

Sixteen chapters, all in the northeast except for three in Ohio and one in Alabama, were established between 1845 and 1883, when the organization of a confederation of chapters took place. The founding of the United Chapters of Phi Beta Kappa had its origins in the centennial anniversary celebration of the Alpha of Massachusetts at Harvard in 1881. Two years later, on September 5, 1883, the first National Council of the United Chapters met at Saratoga Springs, New York, the forerunner of today’s Triennial Council meetings.

It took 100 years before chapters invited the first African Americans or women to participate in Phi Beta Kappa. The first women were inducted as members at the University of Vermont in 1875, and at Connecticut’s Wesleyan University in 1876. The first African American men were elected at Yale in 1874 and at the University of Vermont in 1877, and the first African American woman was elected at Middlebury College in 1899. Over the following decades, charters for new chapters have been granted at the triennial meetings of the Council, which is composed of delegates from the chapters and associations. In 1988, the delegates to the Thirty-fifth Council voted to change the name to The Phi Beta Kappa Society, reflecting the increasing importance of Phi Beta Kappa’s community-based associations to the organization. Additionally, the role of Phi Beta Kappa has become both clearer. Phi Beta Kappa leaves to other honorary societies the recognition of academic success in fields other than the liberal arts and sciences. New charters continue to be granted only to Phi Beta Kappa faculty members of the sheltering institution, and candidates for membership in Phi Beta Kappa are expected to be enrolled in courses of study demonstrably liberal in character. Whatever a liberal education may be, its original sense goes back at least to Aristotle and it is the kind of instruction that educates individuals in the fullest sense of the word: intellectually, ethically, socially. Thus, membership in Phi Beta Kappa is an honor conferred in recognition of scholarly attainment in the liberal arts and sciences.

Phi Beta Kappa at UH
On March 4th, 2016, the Mu of Texas chapter, PBK’s 284th, was installed at the University of Houston. Since then, UH’s PBK chapter has inducted 339 lifetime members, organized a Phi Beta Kappa Honors Academy for local high schoolers, hosted multiple PBK Visiting Scholars, and two UH students have received the prestigious PBK Key Into Public Service Scholarship. This year marks the largest cohort of members in course at the University of Houston. A total of 92 UH students representing excellence in the liberal arts and sciences will be inducted as lifetime members of the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.

Only students at a college or university may be inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Membership is invitation-only and contingent upon fulfillment of minimum requirements. Chapters are expected to determine the specific application of standards stated in these stipulations. If you have questions on your eligibility, please contact your chapter officer.

Stipulation 1. 

Eligible students shall be candidates for a bachelor’s degree. The student's record shall include coursework in the liberal arts and sciences equivalent to at least three-quarters of the credits ordinarily required for a bachelor's degree in these fields (e.g., not less than 90 semester hours of work if 120 hours are normally required for such a degree). The liberal arts and sciences encompass the traditional disciplines of the natural sciences, mathematics, social sciences, and humanities. Select courses in other programs of study may be included only if they unambiguously embody the liberal arts and sciences.

Because Phi Beta Kappa honors excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, applied or pre-professional coursework shall not be considered in determining eligibility. This stipulation excludes professionally focused courses and courses devoted to the acquisition of practical skills.

Stipulation 2.  

Weight shall be given to the breadth and depth of study in liberal arts and sciences, taking into account the number, variety, and level of courses taken outside the requirements of the major, and the proportion of the candidate's overall program those courses constitute.

Consideration shall also be given to the number of elective courses taken above the introductory, or general education, level.

Stipulation 3. 

Candidates shall have demonstrated, by successful work in high school or college, or in the two together, a knowledge of a second or non-native language at least minimally appropriate for a liberal education. In no case shall this mean less than the completion of the intermediate college level in a second, or non-native, language, or its equivalent.

Stipulation 4.

The candidate's undergraduate record shall include at least one course in college-level mathematics, logic, or statistics, with content appropriate to a liberal arts and sciences curriculum. The course should introduce the student to mathematical ideas, abstract thinking, proofs, and the axiomatic method.

Stipulation 5.

In keeping with the Founders’ interest in fostering not only academic excellence but also friendship and morality, invitation to Phi Beta Kappa should be extended only to persons of good moral character.

Chapter-level stipulations

Stipulation 6.

Students must have completed a minimum of 66 credit hours toward their degree plan at the University of Houston.

Stipulation 7.

If a student is not invited through the standard selection process, faculty may nominate a student for transcript review by the chapter director, along with the officers and nominating committee. All courses taken throughout the undergraduate career will be considered for “breadth and depth” of liberal arts and sciences qualification.

All chapter members elected as an undergraduate or graduate student are members in course.

President: Albert Cheng

Vice President: Lesli Vollrath

Secretary: Maria Elena Solino

Treasurer: Stuart Long

Historian: Ben Rayder