Elon University President Leo M. Lambert dedicated Phi Beta Kappa Commons in the Academic Village on Tuesday during a special College Coffee. Lambert called the morning ceremony on the brick plaza “a tribute to the university’s dedication to the arts and sciences.” The university will install a chapter of the nation’s oldest academic society today at Convocation for Honors.
Lambert was joined at the podium by Don J. Wyatt, a Phi Beta Kappa senator who chaired the committee that made site visits to Elon before the society approved a chapter for the university. Wyatt, who was introduced by English professor Russell Gill, extended a welcome on behalf of the national Phi Beta Kappa office.
“This is truly a watershed event in the history of the university,” he said before quoting a Chinese proverb. “’Just as hunger is cured by food, ignorance is cured by learning.’”
Elon will become the seventh university in the state to welcome Phi Beta Kappa when the society formally installs the Eta Chapter of North Carolina during Convocation, which begins at 3:30 p.m. in Alumni Gym.
Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic society. About 10 percent of U.S. colleges and universities shelter Phi Beta Kappa chapters. Typically, students chosen for Phi Beta Kappa membership rank among the top 10 percent of arts and sciences majors, and have demonstrated outstanding scholarship, leadership, multicultural awareness and foreign language proficiency.