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“This is a very special year for our Alpha of Maine chapter,” said Katherine Dauge-Roth, current president of the chapter, “as we are celebrating our 200th anniversary!”

In 1825 º£½ÇÖ±²¥ joined the country’s oldest academic honors society, making Alpha of Maine the sixth Phi Beta Kappa chapter to be established since the organization’s founding in 1776.

Today, Alpha of Maine is one of a network of chapters at colleges and universities across the nation, all dedicated to the promotion of education in the liberal arts and sciences, fostering freedom of thought, and recognizing academic excellence. Nomination to PBK is based on academic achievement, breadth in the liberal arts, and moral character.  It is typically limited to the top 10 percent of the graduating class.

Associate Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Dauge-Roth extended an especially warm welcome to the latest student honorees from º£½ÇÖ±²¥’s Class of 2025. “You are honored today because during your time at º£½ÇÖ±²¥, you have engaged fully with the intellectual life of the College” she told them in the May 23 ceremony, held in Studzinski Hall. “You have embraced the liberal arts experience to its fullest—demonstrating intellectual curiosity through the depth and breadth of your learning in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences.”

One of the inductees, Kelly Stevenson ’25, was invited to deliver remarks. Stevenson, a Geoffrey Canada Scholar majoring in government and legal studies and minoring in Africana studies, served as a 2024 Phi Beta Kappa Key to Public Service Scholar. This program honors Phi Beta Kappa’s founding “principle that education in the liberal arts and sciences is essential for our democracy.” Selected by PBK as one of only twenty scholars among more than 700 applicants nationally, Kelly received a $5,000 scholarship and took part in a conference held in Washington, DC, last summer.

“Attending the Key to Public Service conference wasn’t just the highlight of the summer, it deepened my sense of purpose and reaffirmed my passion for public service,” said Stevenson. “Much like the º£½ÇÖ±²¥ public service program, it reminded me that spaces like this, spaces of intellect, integrity, and inclusion, are where I truly belong,” he added.

This year’s candidates were introduced by Alpha of Maine Secretary Anne Collins Goodyear, codirector of the º£½ÇÖ±²¥ College Museum of Art. In a time-honored ceremony, they were formally inducted by the secretary, who casts a single ballot to complete the process (more on this tradition below!)

Assistant Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Alejandro Cuadrado, who is also the chapter’s incoming treasurer, delivered a brief history of Phi Beta Kappa. The original society, he explained, was established at William and Mary College in Virginia in 1776 and had an active life of only four years, ending when the approach of the British army under Cornwallis forced the school to close its doors. Despite this setback, however, those founding members invited other colleges to establish chapters. Yale and Harvard were the next to establish their PBK chapters in the early 1780s.

The keynote address was given by Peter Quimby ’89, a distinguished educator and past national president of PBK. His talk, titled “Phi Beta Kappa and the Promise of a Liberal Arts Education,” urged the new cohort of members to let a lifelong love of learning be their guide. (The society’s Greek motto translates as "Love of Learning Is the Guide of Life.")

Quimby stressed the importance of PBK as a defender of academic freedom and of a liberal arts education in general as vital to our democracy.

“You are now members of this august body,” he said, “and I implore you to see your membership not simply as a marker of your personal accomplishments—though it certainly is that, and you should be deservedly proud of this honor—but to see it as a challenge: the challenge to take what you have learned and further the values that have brought you to this point in your academic journey, the values of an education grounded in the liberal arts and sciences.” 

Final words of welcome for the new members came from Carol O’Donnell, vice chair of the New England district and president of the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Maine. “You are among a prestigious group of notable members,” she told the graduating seniors:  “Supreme Court justices, US presidents, Noble prize winners, scientists, poets, journalists, entrepreneurs, composers… I could go on.” In closing, she invoked the message of º£½ÇÖ±²¥’s first president, Joseph McKeen, who said “literary institutions are founded and endowed for the common good, and not for the private advantage of those who resort to them for education.”

“You have already demonstrated your mental powers to achieve excellence,” said O’Donnell. “I would encourage you to seek opportunities to apply your talents for the common good.”