Summer 2004
PEOPLE
SUNY
Geneseo’s Phi Beta Kappa Chapter Inducts First Group of Students
The State
University of New York at Geneseo has inducted its first group of students
into its new chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s best known and
most significant honor society.
Overall, 63 students were elected to become members of Phi Beta Kappa,
said Doug Baldwin, associate professor and chair of the computer
science department and president of the Geneseo chapter.
Phi Beta Kappa granted the chapter to SUNY Geneseo faculty members last
year. Each year, these faculty members elect the students into the Alpha
Delta of New York chapter. Geneseo is the first non-doctoral undergraduate
institution within SUNY to house a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and one of
only 270 colleges and universities in the nation to have a Phi Beta Kappa
chapter, Baldwin said.
"It’s a good external recommendation of the College’s excellence,"
Baldwin said.
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.
Having a Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Geneseo is expected to assist the College
in continuing to attract top applicants and in hosting a variety of programs
that honor and champion liberal arts scholarship. Phi Beta Kappa provides
support to its members in the form of scholarships, lectureships, book
and essay awards, summer institutes for teachers, and funds for visiting
scholars.
More than 25 faculty and staff spent several years working to establish
a campus chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Geneseo. In 2002, a year after the
College was informed it had been accepted for final consideration, a team
of Phi Beta Kappa officials visited Geneseo. The team reviewed faculty,
campus facilities and academic programs. Last August, at the triennial
Phi Beta Kappa Assembly, the Geneseo chapter was formally approved. In
January, the College installed the chapter with a ceremony.