Welcome

Welcome to the beta of New Hampshire chapter of Phi Beta Kappa. Our members include UNH and UNH Manchester faculty, staff, and administrators as well as students elected during their junior or senior year. Phi Beta Kappa is a national honor society that recognizes outstanding achievement in the liberal arts and sciences and fosters a community dedicated to the pursuit of intellectual inquiry and integrity.

Five students at the College of William & Mary founded Phi Beta Kappa in 1776, during the American Revolution. For over two and a quarter centuries, the Society has embraced the principles of freedom of inquiry and liberty of thought and expression. Laptops have replaced quill pens, but these ideas, symbolized on Phi Beta Kappa's distinctive gold key, still lay the foundations of personal freedom, scientific inquiry, liberty of conscience and creative endeavor.

The symbol of the Phi Beta Kappa Society is a golden key engraved on the obverse with the image of a pointing finger, three stars, and the Greek letters from which the society takes its name. The stars are said today to represent the ambition of young scholars and the three distinguishing principles of the Society: friendship, morality, and learning. On the reverse are found the initials "SP" in script, which stand for the Latin words societas philosophiae, or "society of philosophy".