Nation's Oldest Honorary Society to Host Banquet April 13

Baylor University's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, America's oldest scholarly honorary society, will host its annual banquet at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13, on the fifth floor of the Cashion Academic Center in the Hankamer School of Business.
Dr. Joseph Elmer Hawkins Jr. is scheduled to speak at 8 p.m. following the induction of 65 new members who represent the top five percent of the graduating class in the College of Arts and Sciences. Hawkins' lecture is free and open to the public.
A native of Waco, Hawkins was elected as an alumnus member of Baylor's Phi Beta Kappa chapter in 1982. He received his bachelor's degree from Baylor in 1933. In 1937 he won a Rhodes scholarship to Worcester College, Oxford University, where he earned a degree in animal physiology. He earned his doctorate in medical sciences at Harvard University in 1941. He began his career as a medical school teacher at Harvard, continued at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine at Wake Forest, the New York University Medical School, and the University of Michigan Medical School before serving as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Biology at Baylor from 1985 to 1993.
Members of Phi Beta Kappa have distinguished themselves academically and received the most coveted of invitations, to join an organization that recognizes and encourages a commitment to excellence in the liberal arts.
Students do not apply for membership in Phi Beta Kappa, rather membership in the society comes only through election and initiation by the local chapter. Baylor has inducted 857 members in the chapter since it was chartered in 1976.
Prominent members of Phi Beta Kappa across the country include six Supreme Court justices, presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush, James A. Michener, Elizabeth Dole, Benazir Bhutto, Stephen Sondheim and Buffalo Bills coach Marvin Levy.