Phi Beta Kappa

Phi Beta Kappa, leading academic honour society in the U.S., which draws its membership from college and university students. The oldest Greek-letter society in the U.S., it was founded in 1776 as a secret literary and philosophical society at the College of William and Mary. It became an honour society in the 19th century. One of the first African Americans elected to Phi Beta Kappa was physicist Edward Alexander Bouchet (1852-1918), elected in 1884. He was also the first African American to graduate Yale College in 1874, the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in the United States, as well as the sixth person to earn a doctorate in physics from an American university, which he received from Yale in 1876. 

Membership in the honour society is now based on general scholarship, and new members are usually elected by Phi Beta Kappa faculty. The honour society’s award-winning quarterly magazine—The American Scholar, published since 1932—covers public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture.