Word: kappa
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Next November, Phi Beta Kappa will add an additional 16 from the senior class to its roster. In the week before each commencement, the top ten percent of the graduating class are admitted to Phi Beta Kappa...
Today in 1949, Phi Beta Kappa elects about 100 men to its ranks from each class. When the Alpha Chapter of Massachusetts began at the University of Cambridge in 1781 it had six members and none of the six claimed any particular fame as scholars. Phi Beta Kappa was, as a matter of fact, the first of the social Greek letter organizations which thrive on most college campuses in the United States today...
...first Phi Beta Kappa Society came into existence December 5, 1776 at William and Mary in Virginia. It introduced all the ritual and mysticism employed by contemporary fraternities--an oath of secrecy, a badge, mottoes in Greek and Latin, a code of laws, an elaborate form of initiation, a seal, and a special hand-clasp...
Meetings, however, were devoted to debates and the reading of papers instead of to boisterous intake of alcohol. In that respect Phi Beta Kappa at its inception distinguished itself from the run of fraternities...
William and Mary's chapter didn't last long, though. It dissolved with the approach of Cornwallis' British troops after four years and 67 meetings. But one Elisha Parmele, a Harvard graduate, received characters for branch chapters at Yale and Harvard before the original Phi Bota Kappa went into extinction...