By Emelia Delaporte
“The love of learning is the joy of a deep life. I look back over seven decades and the things that I have learned about science, humanities, language, politics and literature,” said George Greenia. “This has given me a happy life, and it’s the type of thing that you want to share with others.”
When Greenia received an offer of membership to the newly established Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he was unaware of the existence of the society. He was in his sixth and final undergraduate year and didn’t have a reason to see past the cost of dues. A faculty member in his field paid them for him.
“One of the things I think prevents young inductees just coming out of college from being fully invested is feeling like they’re playing out the imposter syndrome,” Greenia said. “You just sort of feel this cringing unworthiness that may take decades to overcome.”
Greenia went on to work at William & Mary, where Phi Beta Kappa was founded, after completing his doctorate at the University of Michigan. He stayed at W&M his entire career and retired ten years ago. In Williamsburg, he has been able to fully immerse himself in the Society. He recommends prospective inductees accept their membership as a way of finding friends for life.
“Any students who have been offered admission to ΦBK should see it as a way to find peers in love with lifelong learning on their own campus, whom they may not have met yet,” Greenia said. “After graduation, those are the people they are actually going to want to hang out with, maybe more than those from a fraternity or sorority.”
Greenia has found that community in his fellow faculty as well as in W&M students as they have come through his classes and moved beyond the university. He works in romance languages and medieval studies. Teaching in a niche field at a small institution has made for tight ties and frequent cross-disciplinary connections.
“That’s been a great advantage to my career because I have known students through the full four-year arc of their undergraduate work. Many of them have become not just alumni but adult friends,” Greenia said. “It’s that four-year arc that brought many of them to Phi Beta Kappa by the time they graduated. That’s the most rewarding part. Students like that have given me the most joy.”
After their undergraduate years, many keyholders take their time finding their way back to the Society or even actively participating in a love of learning. Rigorous graduate coursework may preclude a broader interest in learning. Greenia highlights the joy of returning to learning for fun after degrees have been awarded and careers have been established.
“(Once) you finish the requirements for your professional credentialing, you can resume all those fascinating areas that you had to park for a while that attracted you as an undergraduate. It’s a chance to sustain, advance, renew, and celebrate those in your life as you travel into future decades,” Greenia said. “That joy is really what sustains you through a long career. That’s what PBK is all about—sustaining a joy in what you learn well past undergraduate times.”
Greenia broadens his joyful scope in his field through volunteerism. What he humbly portrays as participation in service to his enthusiastic promotion of Spanish culture led him to be knighted by the then-King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, in 2007. He is also a founding member of the International Fraternity of the Camino de Santiago and has received a number of other awards and titles related to his engagement in historical and academic organizations.
That passion is what Greenia wants prospective inductees and recent graduates to remember as they welcome Phi Beta Kappa into their lives. While it is a retrospective honor, it is also a heralding of a full life yet to come.
“It’s an opportunity to be passionate about something and to understand the passions of others. I think that’s at the heart of Phi Beta Kappa,” Greenia said.
In 2009, Greenia was elected to serve at the national level of The Phi Beta Kappa Society, headquartered in Washington, D.C. He helped to guide and govern the Society for six years as a member of the Executive Committee and was honored with the President’s Award in 2015 at the Society’s 44th Triennial Council.
Emelia Delaporte is a 2025 graduate of Virginia Tech, where she majored in journalism and English and minored in biodiversity conservation and natural resources recreation. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa there in April 2025. Virginia Tech is home to the Mu of Virginia chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.