By Steve Gilliam, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 4-1-09
GREENSBORO, NC – The UNCG chapter of Phi Beta Kappa will induct new members Tuesday, April 21.
Dr. Harvey Klehr, Mellon Professor of Politics and History at Emory University, will give the Phi Beta Kappa Lecture on “Was Joe McCarthy Right? What Declassified Files Tell Us About Soviet Espionage in America.”
Klehr has written extensively on the American Communist Movement and Soviet espionage in the United States. His books include “The Soviet World of American Communism,” “Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America” and “In Denial: Historians, Communism and Espionage.”
His talk will follow the 7 p.m. induction ceremony in the Weatherspoon Art Museum auditorium. The event is open to the public.
Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest and most widely known of collegiate honorary societies. It was established in 1776 at the College of William and Mary and there are only 276 chapters nationally. Notable members are former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter; NFL quarterback Peyton Manning; historian John Hope Franklin; poet Rita Dove; and film director Francis Ford Coppola.
In 2006, the national society named UNCG’s Epsilon chapter the nation’s most outstanding chapter at a public university. Epsilon chapter was formed during the Woman’s College era in 1934 as a branch of the UNC-Chapel Hill chapter and became an independent chapter in 1956. UNCG is one of only six institutions in North Carolina to have a chapter. Others are UNC-CH, N.C. State University, Wake Forest University, Davidson College and Duke University.
Phi Beta Kappa recognizes outstanding scholarship in the liberal arts and sciences. At UNCG, students are generally elected in the spring of the senior year; however, a few students with exceptionally high averages may be elected earlier. Acceptable programs of study are the Bachelor of Arts or the Bachelor of Science, with appropriate majors or concentrations, in the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Music and the Department of Economics.
In addition, the student must have the following: a very high grade point average, at least six credit hours of a foreign language at the intermediate level, and three-fourths of the total number of hours in courses of a genuinely liberal character, as determined by the chapter.
