TXST inducts the first class of its new Phi Beta Kappa chapter

It takes a lot of hard work to become an overnight success. Heather Galloway, Ph.D., dean of the Honors College, knows that firsthand. She—along with Catherine Jaffe, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor in the Department of World Languages and Literatures—has spearheaded the efforts to establish a TXST chapter of Phi Beta Kappa for the past 16 years.

That persistence has finally paid off. About 270 TXST students reaped the benefits of Galloway, Jaffe and countless other faculty and staff when the inaugural class of Phi Beta Kappa’s Nu chapter was inducted Sunday, March 30, in the LBJ Grand Ballroom. TXST is only the fifth public university in the state to host a chapter. 

The Phi Beta Kappa Society, founded in 1776, is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at more than 290 colleges and universities in the United States, nearly 50 alumni associations and more than half a million members worldwide. Noteworthy members include 17 U.S. presidents, 42 U.S. Supreme Court justices and more than 150 Nobel laureates. The society’s mission is to champion education in the liberal arts and sciences, foster freedom of thought and recognize academic excellence.

“It’s wonderful for our students, because if you don’t attend a Phi Beta Kappa institution as an undergraduate, you won’t get into Phi Beta Kappa unless, maybe, you’re a special initiate as a faculty member,” Jaffe says. “It’s been a long, long process. As a Spanish professor, I teach Don Quixote regularly, so I sort of feel like that’s what this experience has been like—don’t give up. You just keep going. But it’s been worth it to recognize these outstanding students and the growth of the Honors College.”

Like most honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa singles out students with high GPAs who excel in their chosen academic fields but focuses on students pursuing a liberal arts and sciences curriculum. This means that in addition to collegiate level math courses—which all TXST students are required to complete—Phi Beta Kappa candidates must also have completed four semesters of foreign language, which dramatically limits the number of eligible students. Despite this, TXST’s inaugural class far exceeds what anyone involved expected.

“I am actually very surprised at the large number,” Galloway says. “We were focused on counting the numbers of students majoring in traditional Phi Beta Kappa disciplines, like history or chemistry. But then our Information Technology people wrote a script for us to look at students’ transcripts and count hours. What we discovered is that there are students who are double majoring in public health and in Spanish, so they were eligible as well. 

“We were finding students who are majoring in education and their goal is to be a teacher, but they’ve taken two foreign languages as an additional minor,” she adds. “This gives them more than 90 hours of liberal arts and sciences classes and makes them eligible where a traditional education major wouldn’t be. Some of them are double majors. Some of them are business majors. Some of them are pursuing a B.A. in economics. It turns out that there are students from every single college on campus we might not have found had we not had that script.”

Applications from aspiring institutions receive intense scrutiny from Phi Beta Kappa. The list of factors reviewed is exhaustive—everything from course offerings to faculty qualifications, study abroad and extracurricular opportunities, national fellowships, facilities, endowments, university finances, and university governance. One significant consideration—the number of Phi Beta Kappa members on faculty—received a high-profile boost when Kelly Damphousse, Ph.D., became TXST president in 2022. Damphousse was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa during his tenure as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma.   

The Phi Beta Kappa faculty at TXST are taking an active role in the recruitment process for the first induction class. Many of the candidates are first-generation students with little understanding of the prestige attached to Phi Beta Kappa. Many students are bombarded with “honor society” offers that are little more than scams, so faculty are reaching out to individual students to assure them this is an opportunity they should absolutely take advantage of. And with TXST covering the membership fee for this first class of inductees, the barrier to membership is practically nonexistent.

“When I was in college, Phi Beta Kappa sent the [invitation] letter home to my parents,” Galloway remembers. “I was in living in the residence hall in the days before cell phones, so my roommate comes running down the hall and says, ‘Your father is on the phone!’ I’m thinking, ‘My father doesn’t call me. If my father is calling me, my mother is in the hospital or she’s dead.’

“It turns out that my father was a history major and knew all about Phi Beta Kappa,” she says. “When the letter came, he was, “Wow! Heather made Phi Beta Kappa—we should call her! I still remember getting that phone call from my dad saying, ‘Hey, are you going to respond to this?’”

Jaffe remembers Phi Beta Kappa as the ultimate recognition for academic excellence during her student days. The honor society has been referenced in movies and other popular media. Aside from making the dean’s list or graduating with honors, there wasn’t much else in place to recognize students who excelled in the classroom.

 “It not only means you were a good student, it means that the liberal arts and sciences are fundamental to the progress of our country and to the human soul, our spirit, our education,” Jaffe says. “I think we need as much of that as we can get these days. It’s important to remember the value of humanities and sciences to our basic education, to the development of our students, of our minds and as citizens of our country.”