UMW senior Carleigh Wood poses with Professor of Chemistry and Honors Program Director Kelli Slunt, who presented her with the Roy H. Smith Phi Beta Kappa Award.
Each spring, dozens of University of Mary Washington students join the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society – Phi Beta Kappa – with a Sunday afternoon induction ceremony and the applause of faculty, staff, campus community members and their families.
Fifty-seven UMW juniors and seniors were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa during a recent ceremony announcing the 2025 cohort of the University’s Kappa of Virginia chapter. They join an impressive roster of members, including 17 U.S. Presidents, 42 Supreme Court Justices and more than 150 Nobel Laureates.
The ultra-selective, merit-based, invitation-only honor is reserved for the best and brightest liberal arts and sciences undergraduates from fewer than 300 top schools across the nation. Only 10 percent of American colleges and universities have Phi Beta Kappa chapters, and at each of those schools, fewer than 10 percent of students are selected as members.
This year’s ceremony was held April 6 in the Hurley Convergence Center’s Digital Auditorium on UMW’s Fredericksburg Campus, with guest speaker Rusty Spears, from the Richmond Association of PBK. Read more.