PROGRAMS
Young Professionals
The Phi Beta Kappa Association of the Delaware Valley actively facilitates its young professional members, to meet and engage with each other in ways that lead to professional connections as well as personal friendships. Among our programs, we offer a variety of self-supporting events that respect the schedules and interests of early career members. Dedicated members of this group constitute the Young Professionals Advisory Committee (YPAC), which helps develop and carry out activities and events, for socializing, networking, and social responsibility.
We also welcome members to join our Phi Beta Kappa Association of the Delaware Valley LinkedIn group and follow us on Instagram @pbkdelawarevalley .
Our Basic Membership dues are only $10 annually for the first three years after induction, and then only $25 annually thereafter ($40 for two years or $50 for three years).
We welcome all members' ideas and suggestions of types and locations for gatherings or events with like-minded PBK alumni that would interest you.
PBK Professional Connections Program
PBK Delaware Valley has created an e-facilitated professional connections program, using a simple online PBK Delaware Valley Professional Connections Interest Form, which only takes a few moments to complete. This timely program is coordinated by PBK Delaware Valley member, Heidi Gray-Devita, who has volunteered to make professional connections introductions. Any matches will be sent back by e-mail or through LinkedIn, for the pair to arrange communication plans.
There are no limits of age or experience to provide a professional connection. Established or early career PBK's can help someone who wishes more information about breaking into that field. Those who want to change careers can also benefit from connecting with someone to discuss a career change. Occasionally if appropriate, someone from our networks who is not a PBK member can be a great professional connection and we may suggest such a contact be made.
Annual High School Book Award Program
Every year, the PBK Association of the Delaware Valley proudly honors outstanding area high school students who excel academically by awarding them with a book which is presented to them at their high school graduation ceremony. This book is judged carefully by our Council as a book that will enrich and educate the students who have achieved such academic excellence.
Finalist for the National Book Award, the enduring classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig, in which a father-son summer trip leads to a "powerful self-reckoning ... and an austerely beautiful process for reconciling science, religion, and humanism", was chosen for the 2024 PBK Delaware Valley Book Award for the approximately 70 high schools participating.
If a high school in our area is interested to participate in this award program, their contact person should contact PBK Delaware Valley at info@pbkdelawarevalley.org . The counties in our region are: PA - Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester; NJ - Camden Gloucester, Burlington, Mercer; DE - New Castle.
2023 Book Award Selection
2022 Book Award Selection
2021 Book Award Selection
2020 Book Award Selection
Comments from a 2023 Phi Beta Kappa Association of the Delaware Valley High School Book Award recipient:
"My name is I.L. from Neshaminy High School and I would like to express my thanks for the recent bestowment of the Phi Beta Kappa Book award. I am honored to have received this award and will take the best wishes of the organization with me on my future endeavors."
2024 Book Award Selection
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholars
The Delaware Valley Association is fortunate to have 11 college and university Phi Beta Kappa Chapters in our region. The Phi Beta Kappa national Visiting Scholars program supports bringing eminent annually designated academic scholars as speakers to Chapters across the country.
The Epsilon of Pennsylvania Chapter at Swarthmore College hosted Professor Julia Bryan-Wilson, on April 11-12, 2024. Professor Bryan-Wilson is Professor of Art History and core faculty at the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University. She is the award-winning author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era (2009), Fray: Art and Textile Politics (2027), and Louise Nevelson's Sculpture: Drag, Color, Join, Face (2023). Professor Bryan-Wilson is the recipient of grants and fellowships from the Andy Warhol foundation, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Smithsonian, and the Terra Foundation, among others. She is a widely published critic and adjunct curator at the Meseu de Arte de Sao Paulo. Professor Bryan-Wilson's public lecture on April 11th, was entitled, "Stitching Protest".
The Delta of New Jersey Chapter at The College of New Jersey hosted Professor M. Cathleen Kaveny, on March 25-26, 2024. Professor Kaveny is the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor of Law and Theology at Boston College, the first faculty member to be appointed in both the Department of Theology and the Law School. Her work focusses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality. She is the author of four books and more than one hundred articles and essays and has published extensively in the areas of law, ethics, and medical ethics. She is the chair of the Bord of Trustees of the Journal of Religious Ethics, and has served as the president of the Society of Christian Ethics, the major professional society for scholars of Christian ethics and moral theology in North America. She has also served on the editorial bords of a number of scholarly journals in her area of expertise. Professor Kaveny's public lecture on March 25th, was entitled, "Nostalgia and Nationalism: Is there a Connection".
The Phi of Pennsylvania Chapter at St. Joseph's University hosted one of PBK's 2023-2024 Visiting Scholars, Professor Trevon Logan, for two days on October 23-24, 2023. Professor Logan is the Hazel C. Youngberg Trustees Distinguished Professor of Economics and Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences, The Ohio State University. On Monday, October 23rd, from 4:00 - 5:30 p.m., Professor Logan delivered a public lecture entitled, “All We Have Is The Truth: Burdened Individuality, Abstract Equality, and Economic Interference” in the Teletorium in Mandeville Hall, to which PBK DV members were welcome to attend. The lecture asked if we are interpreting racial economic and social disparities appropriately.
The Rho of Pennsylvania Chapter at Temple University hosted Professor Mark D. Hayward, a health demographer and population health scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, in February 2023 for two days of talks and interactions, as one of the 2022-2023 PBK Visiting Scholars. Professor Hayward's public lecture during his visit at Temple was entitled, "Improving Our Nation's Health", in which he addressed why, although life expectancy in high-income countries has improved dramatically, the US has fallen significantly behind, with this divergence continuing unabated for over 40 years. His lecture reviewed the ways in which growing social inequality in health, federal policies and the rise of New Federalism may have contributed to this adverse trend in US life expectancy, and highlighted the fast-growing geographic inequality of mortality among US states. Professor Hayward also hypothesized that politics has become a growing force in increasing an array of health risks for many Americans.
Mark D. Hayward, PhD
Trevon Logan, PhD
M. Cathleen Kaveny, JD, PhD
Julia Bryan-Wilson, PhD