Honorary Members

The following people have been elected to our chapter as honorary members.

S. Alan Ray

S. Alan Ray is President and Professor of Religion and Society at Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, Illinois. He assumed the presidency in 2008 after four years in the senior administration of the University of New Hampshire. As the University’s Vice Provost for Academic Affairs (2004-2006) and Senior Vice Provost (2006-2008), he exercised campus-wide authority for undergraduate curricula, including the Discovery Program, the University Honors Program, University Writing Program, Hamel Center for Undergraduate Research, Center for International Education, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, and ROTC. Dr. Ray taught in the College of Liberal Arts and held appointments as affiliate associate professor in Political Science, Philosophy, and Justice Studies.

Dr. Ray received his B.A. in philosophy summa cum laude from St. Thomas Seminary College. He holds a Ph.D. in the study of religion from Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. He came to UNH after eight years in the senior administration of Harvard Law School, the last two as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs.

His teaching, research, and areas of publication include federal Indian law and policy, race and law, Native American religions and law, religion and public policy, and postcolonial political theory. Dr. Ray is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.

Dr. Ray was elected an honorary member of beta of New Hampshire chapter in 2007.

Mary Rasmussen

Mary Rasmussen received her B.A. in music from UNH and her M.M. and M.L.S.(Master of Library Science) degrees from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. Prof. Rasmussen joined the UNH faculty in 1968 and retired at the end of the 1996-97 academic year. She was an internationally recognized scholar of musical iconography who also taught in the areas of bibliography, string development, and fundamentals of music theory; she was the founder and musical director of the Woodman Consort, a viol ensemble.

Professor Rasmussen was elected an honorary member of beta of New Hampshire chapter of Phi Beta Kappa in 2005, having graduated from UNH one year before the first students were elected to the chapter.

Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the founding director of the Women's Research and Resource Center and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA. She is also adjunct professor at Emory University's Institute for Women's Studies where she teaches graduate courses.

At the age of sixteen, she entered Spelman College where she majored in English and minored in secondary education. After graduation with honors, she attended Wellesley College for a fifth year of study in English. In 1968, she entered Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University) to pursue a master's degree in English; her thesis was entitled, "Faulkner's Treatment of Women in His Major Novels." She later earned a Ph.D in American Studies from Emory University. In 1971 she returned to her alma mater Spelman College and joined the English Department.

In 1996, Dr. Guy-Sheftall was initiated as an honorary member of the University of New Hampshire chapter (beta of NH) of Phi Beta Kappa and was thus able to become one of the founding members of the Phi Beta Kappa chapter created at Spelman.