Phi Kappa Phi
| The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi | |
|---|---|
| ΦΚΦ | |
 |
|
| Founded | March 15, 1897 University of Maine |
| Type | Honor Society |
| Emphasis | All-discipline |
| Mission statement | To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others. |
| Motto |
Φιλοσοφία Kρατείτω Φωτῶν (Philosophía Krateítõ Phõtôn) "Let the love of learning rule humanity" |
| Publication | Phi Kappa Phi Forum |
| Chapters | 300+ |
| Members | 71,000 collegiate 35,000 lifetime |
| Headquarters |
7576 Goodwood Boulevard Baton Rouge, Louisiana United States |
| Homepage | phikappaphi.org |
The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (or simply Phi Kappa Phi or ΦΚΦ) is an honor society established in 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to area of study and to promote the "unity and democracy of education". It is the third academic society in the United States to be organized around recognizing academic excellence, and is the oldest all-discipline honor society. The society's motto is Φιλοσοφία Kρατείτω Φωτῶν (Philosophía Krateítõ Phõtôn), which is translated as "Let the love of learning rule humanity", and its mission is "to recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others."
Membership is by invitation only, by an established campus chapter, and is restricted to students with integrity and high ethical standards and who are ranked scholastically in the top of their class, regardless of field of study: the top 7.5 percent of second-semester university juniors and the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students. Faculty, professional staff and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also might be eligible.
Phi Kappa Phi claims to have over 100,000 active members, to initiate approximately 30,000 new members annually, and to have a total of more than 1 million members since its creation, from over 300 college-based chapters in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines.
In the late 1800s, there were only two academic societies founded and organized as honor societies, and they were discipline specific – Tau Beta Pi and Sigma Xi, which were founded in 1885 and 1886, respectively. There was also Phi Beta Kappa, a social and literary society that did not originate as an honor society when it was founded in 1776 but would soon become one for the liberal arts and sciences. Although Phi Beta Kappa was not exclusive to one discipline, it did not extend its membership beyond the liberal arts and sciences, hence the establishment of Tau Beta Pi, an honor society for engineering. Phi Beta Kappa became sufficient as an all-campus honor society for liberal arts colleges, but there was no honor society that could serve as such for the universities encompassing both liberal education and also technological and professional education, a mission to which the newly burgeoning land-grant universities of the time were dedicated. That was to change in 1897 when the first organizational meeting of Lambda Sigma Eta (later named Phi Kappa Phi), the nation's first all-discipline honor society, was held in Coburn Hall at the University of Maine under the leadership of undergraduate student Marcus L. Urann. In opposition to what he saw as the separateness and exclusivity promoted by the social fraternities and discipline bound honor societies, Urann wanted to create a society that was defined by inclusiveness and that unified a campus, constituted by "high rank men drawn from all classes and all groups and all societies". Those selected for invitation into the society would be the top ten students of the senior class whose rank did not fall below the 90th percentile for the four years of work at the university. In all, the Society was founded by 10 senior students, two faculty members, and the university president, Abram Winegaard Harris. Urann graduated in 1897, and leadership of Phi Kappa Phi was assumed by President Harris. A year or so later, the name was changed to the Morrill Society, in honor of the sponsor of the Congressional Act which provided for land-grant universities. In 1899, the first woman was initiated into the Society, Pearl Clayton Swain.
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