Member Spotlight

Amy Hess photo

Violist Amy Hess Responds to Pandemic by Creating a New Music Program

Amy Hess (ΦBK, Oberlin College) is the co-founder of the Fulton Music Society, a nonprofit organization that helps develop well-rounded musicians through a diverse, holistic curriculum.

Allison Dickinson photo

Allison Dickson Inspires Others as a New Team Member at Patterson Law Group

“I want to help remind clients that things are not always easy, but if possible, the world is always open for anything.” —Allison Dickson.

Salamishah Tillet photo

Salamishah Tillet

Author, activist, and cultural critic Salamishah Tillet (ΦBK, University of Pennsylvania) received the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in criticism for her New York Times essays on race in arts and culture.

David McCullough photo

Member Spotlight: David McCullough

McCullough was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the first in 1993 for Truman, his biography of the 33rd president of the United States. He won his second Pulitzer in 2002 for John Adams.

Connor Hall photo

Colorado Gains Insights from New Recreation Industry Director

Graduating ΦBK from Earlham College in 2013, Conor Hall’s degree in political science and government has propelled him into Colorado’s outdoor recreation industry with additional missions of saving the environment and promoting sustainable and healthy living.

William Monroe Trotter photo

William Monroe Trotter

Trotter earned graduate and postgraduate degrees at Harvard University and was the first man of color to become a ΦBK member there in 1895. Learn more about Harvard’s recently established William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice.

Chisama Penn photo

Custom Tradition: Supporting Women Artisans

For the founder of Custom Tradition, Chisama Ku Penn (ΦBK, Earlham College), learning has been about centering other individuals and communities, understanding their needs as they define them.

Laurie L. Patton photo

Member Spotlight: Laurie L. Patton

Patton (ΦBK, Harvard University) is the 17th president of Middlebury College and the first woman to lead the institution in its 218-year history.

Amanda Gorman photo

Youngest Inaugural Poet in U.S. History

Amanda Gorman (ΦBK, Harvard University) recited “The Hill We Climb” at the January 20 Inauguration of President Joe Biden.

Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke photo

Duke University Renames Building to Honor Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke

Among Duke’s most noteworthy ΦBK alumni, Reuben-Cooke enrolled 1963 as one of the school’s first five Black undergraduates and later returned as a trustee for the university.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg photo

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Ginsburg (ΦΒΚ, Cornell University) served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 to 2020.

Nicholas Johnson photo

Princeton Student Makes History as First Black Valedictorian

Nicholas André G. Johnson graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton in May 2020. He begins his Ph.D. studies at MIT in the fall.