In 1925, faculty and administration at the University of Montana in Missoula began an effort to charter a chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the institution. The Phi Beta Kappa Society is a national honor society dedicated to recognizing exemplary undergraduate students in the arts and sciences. The organization was founded at the College of William and Mary in 1776; as of 2015, 283 different colleges and universities in the United States had chartered chapters.
The Phi Beta Kappa Society accepts students as lifetime members and many faculty members at the University of Montana received membership while students at other institutions. Starting in 1925, these members spearheaded the effort to bring a permanent chapter of the honor society to the University of Montana. The initial efforts to obtain a chapter in 1925 and 1929 were unsuccessful. In 1940, in conjunction with members' participation in the Phi Beta Kappa Defense Fund to revitalize the organization, the society approved a charter for an alumni association of Phi Beta Kappa for members in western Montana. The Alpha Association of Phi Beta Kappa of Western Montana included community members and faculty at the University of Montana who raised funds to continue to support application efforts by the university for its own chapter. The Association remained active throughout the 1940s and into the 1950s.
Official and unofficial faculty committees comprised of members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society continued to petition and apply for a chartered chapter without success in 1943, 1949, 1957, 1964, and 1996. In 2006, Phi Beta Kappa members revived the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Western Montana that was approved by the parent organization in 1940. This renewed interest sparked several more application attempts for a charter that would ultimately be unsuccessful. In 2015, the Phi Beta Kappa Society officially approved the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Montana as an unchartered alumni association. The Association continues to promote and support the establishment of a chartered chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at the University of Montana.
This collection contains correspondence and application materials associated with efforts by the faculty of the University of Montana to obtain a charter from Phi Beta Kappa from 1925 to 2015. Phi Beta Kappa Defense Fund materials as well as the alumni association's charter from 1940 and correspondence and minutes are also present.
This collection is arranged chronologically.
Researchers must use collection in accordance with the policies of Archives and Special Collections, the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, and The University of Montana-Missoula.
Researchers are responsible for using in accordance with 17 U.S.C. and any other applicable statutes. Copyright status is unknown.
[Name of document or photograph number], Phi Beta Kappa Association of Montana, Archives and Special Collections, Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library, The University of Montana-Missoula.
The donor of the original accession is unknown, while more recent materials came to Archives and Special Collections from James McKusick, an officer in the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Montana.
There are no expected additions to this collection.
This collection was originally assigned the collection number RG 037, but it was changed to Mss 863 in 2015. The collection was previously arranged and placed in labeled and dated folders, the original order of the materials is unknown. During processing, duplicates were removed from the collection along with a letter of interest that did not pertain to the collection. Folders were more accurately described and placed in chronological order.
Archives and Special Collections also holds the University of Montana Student Organizations Collection (Mss 604) that includes a folder of Phi Beta Kappa materials.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or places should search the catalog using these headings.