Talk:Phi Beta Kappa Society

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Fraternities and Sororities WikiProject Phi Beta Kappa Society is part of the Fraternities and Sororities WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Greek Life on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to International social societies, local organizations, honor societies, and their members. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, visit the project page, where you can join the project, and/or contribute to the discussion.
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High This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.


Contents

[edit] Comment on rating

while its an honor society its long history and large number of members plus its importance to the Fraterinity system argues for a High ratingTrey (talk) 20:56, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Accented Letters

I now see what you (User:Evanmc)mean, but on my work computer it comes up as a box; likely because that HTML language support is not added. Realize that many people just see a placeholder, which may be why they revert it. -- Avi 23:59, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revolutionary War

My understanding was that there is some revolutionary war history to PBK. If that is true, it ought to be mentioned here. Sandwich Eater 17:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fictional Phi Beta Kappa members?

A suggestion. (Hope I've done this right.) One example is Ellis Loew, the District_Attorney in James_Ellroy's L.A._Quartet. I seem to remember him twiddling his Phi Beta Kappa Ring in a number of scenes thuout the Quartet. -- Shirt58 03:00, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reestablishment at W&M

It is my understanding that PBK as we know it today is a product mostly of the Harvard chapter, which established chapters at other schools; the original W&M group disbanded during the Revolution when the school closed and was not reestablished until after the war, perhaps not even until the late 1880s, after the school closed and was refounded as a state teacher's college. The page currently reflects the fact that PBK did not operate continuously at W&M from 1776 to the present -- does anyone know when it returned?

Also, the Flat Hat reference is implausible without some support.--Editing 22:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The Flat Hat reference is utterly spurious. It is a myth that Phi Beta Kappa likes to tell about itself to try to link Jefferson to Phi Beta Kappa. Jefferson's own comments makes it clear that the Flat hat Club was a purely social college student joke, and there is nothing that would suggest that the character of either society is similar to the other. Nor is there the slightest shred of evidence that FHC survived to the late 1770's. That PBK's cannot resist repeating such myths here is regrettable, and does not reflect well on their organization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.133.124.199 (talk) 03:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Poorly written section

Cut from article:

  • Ignorance of Phi Beta Kappa
  • A May 26, 1996 article in the New York Times entitled "Phi Beta Kappa Being Turned Down by Many Honorees" noted that some students were turning down membership in the Society because they had never heard of it. Virtually all of the 27 chapters that reported acceptance rates under 90% were at large state universities. [1]
  • At private universities and small liberal arts colleges, however, election to Phi Beta Kappa remains one of the highest honors a student can receive, and the few membership offers extended are almost universally accepted. According to the Times article, the vast majority of chapters report that well over 90% of elected students join.

I have no idea what these two paragraphs are trying to say. Perhaps the NYT article was trying to make a point about PBK becoming less well known? --Uncle Ed 21:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The link to the article is dead anyway, so none of this is verifiable. I'd just jettison it as you've done. MARussellPESE 20:41, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous members

The list of famous members is exceptionally long. Wouldn't it make sense to convert it to a separate article? --orlady 21:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Occidental

Why is "Occidental College (1926)" included in a paragraph that begins "By 1920, there were 89 chapters at a variety of schools. They included:"? Emoll 20:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New ΦBK userbox

This probably isn't the right place for this, but just wanted people to know a {{User Phi Beta Kappa}} userbox has been created (surprised there wasn't one before). --Lukobe 10:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Better place for it is Category:Wikipedians in Phi Beta Kappa —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Avraham (talk • contribs) 15:47, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] The Declaration said WHAT?

Copied from article:

When the United States Declaration of Independence was read in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, it proclaimed the right of the colonials to have government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."

It said no such thing. Those words are from Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.169.97.228 (talk) 07:37, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

The phrase is indeed from the Gettysburg Address delivered by Abraham Lincoln on November 19, 1863. It postdates the Declaration of Independence by four score and seven years. 164.55.254.106 (talk) 22:21, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Membership

This section reads rather like promotional literature, especially the sentences

"Because of its rich history and selectivity, Phi Beta Kappa is generally considered the most prestigious American college honor society and membership is one of the highest honors that can be conferred on undergraduate liberal arts and science students."

and

"Making Phi Beta Kappa recognizable in many campuses is a major challenge that the Society faces in this new millennium."

Suggest the first one needs some evidence and the second one needs cutting? Edjack 14:49, 4 June 2007 (UTC)


...and, reading on, the 'History' section is fairly light on sources and relevance too, in addition to the spectacular Gettysburg/Declaration error.Edjack 14:55, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both of these. "Rich history" is subjective, "selectivity" is debatable considering the 500,000 claimed members, I'm going to cut the first clause and keep the second in the first sentence, and cut the second completely, until someone can come up with proof for or against. --Bakarocket 10:44, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:PhiBetaKappaKey2.gif

Image:PhiBetaKappaKey2.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 06:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History Section

The first paragraph of the history section (pasted below) leaves something to be desired. 2 of the sentences make no grammatical sense ("student associations.... academic fencing"), and the part about the "Zeitgeist" either needs to be sourced or kicked. In fact, given the conclusion of the paragraph (that the development of PBK was independent -- and the "has to be" seems like a spurious conclusion), the entire paragraph seems superfluous (as basically all it says is that Europe had student groups). Thoughts? If there are no disagreements I'll probably remove/rewrite in a few days.

"Student associations of a social nature were formed hundreds of years ago in European universities. These student groups, guilds and other social, literary, and religious associations, existed in Europe over many centuries and in many forms. Student associations in Europe exist until today (see Corps, Corporation, Studentenverbindung). Most of them where founded in the 18th and 19th century but kept older traditions like academic fencing. Contemporaneous founding of most student corporations existing today in Europe and of Phi Beta Kappa is possibly due to a parallel trend or Zeitgeist of that era in Europe and America. The institution of American college Greek-letter fraternities nevertheless has to be regarded as an independent development of American students." Brainmouse (talk) 16:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I have removed this paragraph outright, as I didn't feel it added anything. There is a lot of info in the history section that is completely irreleveant (e.g. about William & Mary's campus), but I am not going to rewrite any of it as, honestly, I know nothing about it. If anyone has the energy and the citations, a rewrite wouldn't be a terrible idea... Brainmouse (talk) 02:05, 8 December 2007 (UTC)