Phi Beta Kappa Award

Each spring, Goucher’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter accepts submissions of student work for the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Memory of Nancy J. Engelhardt ’64 and Brooke Peirce. The award recognizes academic excellence in an outstanding piece of student work, one that also exemplifies the PBK values of liberal-arts scholarship and the love of learning as a guide to life. The winner is recognized at the Spring Awards Convocation, and receives a $500 scholarship from PBK. In 2025, the winner was Kaitlin Rowe, whose paper was titled “It Was Never Just Hair: The Roots of Black Women’s Relationship to Their Hair.”

All current sophomores and juniors are eligible to submit work for the Phi Beta Kappa Award; a call for submissions, with more specific instructions, is sent to students early in the spring semester. The work should have been completed as part of a Goucher course, independent study, or internship.

Community Events

The Phi Beta Kappa chapter sponsors events on campus many semesters, including visiting scholars and speakers and film screenings. In Spring 2025, we welcomed Dr. Kendra McSweeney, of Ohio State University, to campus as a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar for two days in March. Dr. McSweeney visited classes on the main campus and at the Maryland Correctional Institution in Jessup, and gave a fascinating community lecture on the connection between the War on Drugs and climate change.

Spring Induction Ceremony

Each spring, the chapter welcomes newly elected student members in a Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony held shortly before Commencement. Our new members are selected from among the graduating seniors by the faculty and staff of the chapter, who organize the ceremony (and a celebratory reception) to introduce the new students to the Society. The Goucher community is warmly invited to attend.