The Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Tufts University was organized on September 7, 1892.

History of Phi Beta Kappa

The Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa (PBK), a national honorary society, was chartered in 1892 through the efforts of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, President of the United Chapters, Professor William R. Shipman, a member of the society at Middlebury College, and Professor Frank Pierrepont Graves, a professor of classics while at Tufts and a member of the society at Columbia University. Nationally, women were first admitted to Phi Beta Kappa in 1875. Among the first cohort of women studying at Tufts, two were initiated into Phi Beta Kappa in 1896; there were a total of six initiates that year. The PBK Executive Board of Delta Chapter at Tufts University elects students in the spring who show academic excellence in a wide array of disciplines, as well as intellectual commitment, originality and achievement in a particular area, and the quality of mind characteristic of a true scholar.