Word: chapter
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Greeting the initiates of the Radcliffe chapter and the established members in the Harvard community, Mrs. Bunting observed that the goal of membership in PBK probably does not stimulate anyone to academic achievement. Election is "recognition after the fact," she said, a reward for work well done...
Lately, some Faculty members (including at least one Allston Burr Senior Tutor) and even undergraduate PBK members have also complained sub rosa about Harvard's chapter of PBK. Disgruntled with some choices, they have criticized election procedures...
Harvard's chapter is unique in PBK because the undergraduate members choose their successors. At all other colleges, the dean announces the eight or sixteen people who have the highest grades in their class, and that is that. At Harvard, seven "Graduates," including some faculty members, the graduate secretary of the chapter, and a dean representing the Administration, are supposed to assist at each election, and they, like the undergraduates, have one vote each. In practice, those "Graduates" that come to elections generally just supply information when asked...
Realizing this, several undergraduate PBK members have suggested abolishing the chapter. However, Harvard's chapter was founded in 1781; Harvard institutions never die, they just become toxic. So this proposal is impracticable...
Letting the chapter atrophy of its own uselessness would be all right if election were merely on the basis of grades. However, since other criteria are used erratically, elections become irrational, and perhaps even pernicious in their effects...