The Phi Beta Kappa Society (ΦΒΚ) is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and to induct the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at only select American colleges and universities. It was founded at the College of William and Mary on December 5, 1776, as the first collegiate Greek-letter fraternity and was among the earliest collegiate fraternal societies. Since its inception, 17 U.S. presidents, 40 U.S. Supreme Court justices, and 136 Nobel laureates have been inducted as members.
Daniel Coit Gilman was an American educator and academic. Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and subsequently served as the second president of the University of California, Berkeley, as the first president of Johns Hopkins University, and as founding president of the Carnegie Institution.
Henry Martyn Hoyt, Sr. was an American lawyer and politician and the 18th governor of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1883, as well as an officer in the Union army during the American Civil War.
Alpha Sigma Phi (ΑΣΦ), commonly known as Alpha Sig, is an intercollegiate men's social fraternity with 181 active chapters and provisional chapters. Founded at Yale in 1845, it is the 10th oldest Greek letter fraternity in the United States.
William Henry Letterman was born in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He was the co-founder of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in 1852 at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.
George Shiras Jr. was an American lawyer who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1892 to 1903. At that time of his appointment, he had 37 years of private legal practice but had never judged a case. He is noted for his votes in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. and in Plessy v. Ferguson.
Sylvester Judd was a Unitarian minister and an American novelist.
James Gates Percival was an American poet, surgeon, and geologist, born in Berlin, Connecticut, and died in Hazel Green, Wisconsin.
Delta Phi (ΔΦ) is a fraternity founded in 1827 at Union College in Schenectady, New York consisting of ten active chapters along the East Coast of the United States. The fraternity also uses the names "St. Elmo," "St. Elmo Hall," or merely "Elmo" because of its relation to Erasmus of Formia with some chapters known almost exclusively by one of these names on their respective campuses. Delta Phi was, after the Kappa Alpha Society and Sigma Phi Society, the third and last member of the Union Triad.
Phi Alpha (ΦΑ) is a men's Literary Society founded in 1845 at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois. It conducts business meetings, literary productions, and other activities in Beecher Hall, the oldest college building in the state of Illinois.
Edward Alexander Bouchet was an American physicist and educator and was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from any American university, completing his dissertation in physics at Yale University in 1876. On the basis of his academic record he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In 1874, he became one of the first African Americans to graduate from Yale College.
Theta Kappa Psi Medical Fraternity, Incorporated, (ΘΚΨ) is a North American professional medical fraternity. As of 2023, it operates as an independent local fraternity with one active chapter.
Cyrus Northrop was an American university president.
Phi Chi (ΦΧ) is one of the oldest and largest international medical fraternities of its kind in the world. Phi Chi evolved from the merging of two professional medical fraternities bearing the same name. Phi Chi Society was founded on March 31, 1889, at the University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt. Phi Chi Medical Fraternity was founded on October 26, 1894, at the Louisville Medical College, Louisville, Ky. These two organizations did not know that they shared a similar name when they were founded. On March 5, 1905, in Burlington, Vt., Phi Chi Society and Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, Inc., were consolidated taking the name Phi Chi Medical Fraternity, Inc.
The North American fraternity and sorority system began with students who wanted to meet secretly, usually for discussions and debates not thought appropriate by the faculty of their schools. Today they are used as social, professional, and honorary groups that promote varied combinations of community service, leadership, and academic achievement.
For the Catholic priest and writer, see Daniel A. Lord
Edwin Augustus Grosvenor was a historian, author, chairman of the history department at Amherst College, and president of the national organization of Phi Beta Kappa societies from 1907 to 1919. Grosvenor was called "one of the most cosmopolitan of Americans" by author and abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson. His son, Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, was the first employee and longtime editor of National Geographic Magazine.
Eli Ives was an American physician.
Andrew Flinn Dickson was an American minister and author born in Charleston, South Carolina.
John Brownlee Robertson was an American politician.
