This December, The Phi Beta Kappa Society will mark 250 years since five students at the College of William & Mary founded a society built on the conviction: love of learning is the guide of life. That conviction has shaped a membership of more than 700,000, including 17 U.S. presidents, 42 Supreme Court justices, and more than 150 Nobel laureates.
Phi Beta Kappa’s 10th Secretary and CEO, Frederick M. Lawrence, will welcome an esteemed gathering at the Smithsonian National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C., on December 5, 2026, to celebrate this momentous anniversary. The program will include readings and reflections from distinguished poets who are all members of the Society: former U.S. poet laureates Rita Dove and Tracy K. Smith and former National Youth Poet Laureate Alexandra Huynh.
Rita Dove (ΦBK, Miami University) was the U.S. poet laureate from 1993 to 1995. Her honors include the 1987 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry; the National Humanities Medal; the National Medal of Arts; an honorary National Book Award; and the Wallace Stevens Award and the Leadership Award, both from the Academy of American Poets. Dove teaches creative writing at the University of Virginia. From 1994–2000, she served as a Phi Beta Kappa Senator.
Tracy K. Smith (ΦBK, Harvard University) is the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and a professor of English and of African and African American studies at Harvard University. She was awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for Life on Mars. Smith served as the U.S. poet laureate from 2017 to 2019, during which time she launched the podcast The Slowdown.
Alexandra Huynh (ΦBK, Stanford University) is a Vietnamese American poet who served as the 2021 National Youth Poet Laureate of the U.S. She has performed on a variety of stages ranging from the National Mall to UNESCO Headquarters. Prior to earning a bachelor of arts in American Studies at Stanford, Huynh developed her creative talents via the Sacramento Area Youth Speaks program. She currently works at the San Francisco Public Library.
Why anchor the evening with poetry?
“I love the sense of poetry as a way of being in the world,” Smith (pictured) said during a recent event at Harvard University. “Poems can give me the opportunity to ask more, different, and better questions.”
“We live kind of on the shores of reality,” Smith observed. “We can see things in the distance as complex, and inviting, and powerful, potentially transformative, but there’s so much that keeps us from wading into that. I think poetry is one art form that says we can dive into those waters and discover the many different layers of the reality that we live with.”
This instinct to “dive” and to learn is the energy that has fueled Phi Beta Kappa for 250 years.
To stay apprised of gala details, including the opportunity to buy tickets, visit pbk.org/250Gala.
By Sandra Beasley, Editorial and Digital Content Manager