UMaine Holds Phi Kappa Phi Induction
Contact: George Manlove at (207) 581-3756
ORONO — More than 90 outstanding students and faculty members at the University of Maine were honored for scholarship and outstanding character April 14 at the UMaine chapter of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi’s spring initiation and awards ceremony.
Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest and largest multidisciplinary collegiate honor society, and was founded at the University of Maine more than a century ago.
Officers of Phi Kappa Phi’s Chapter One, of Orono, initiated outstanding junior, senior and graduate students into the society, in addition to welcoming four members of the UMaine faculty and staff. Ceremonies were held at the Buchanan Alumni House.
Phi Kappa Phi national president Wendell H. McKenzie, a professor of genetics at North Carolina State University, was keynote speaker.
Award winners and inductees were chosen on the basis of outstanding scholarship and excellent character. Candidates for initiation into Phi Kappa Phi may represent all academic fields, and also may include exceptional staff members, according to Kim McKeage, associate professor of marketing in the UMaine School of Business and president of the campus Phi Kappa Phi chapter.
The four faculty inductees are: Daniel Innis, dean of the UMaine College of Business, Public Policy and Health; Alfred Bushway, professor of food science, cooperating professor of entomology and professor at the Maine Lobster Institute; Janice Kristo, professor of education, language arts and reading; and Laurie Osher, assistant professor of soil and water quality.
Phi Kappa Phi was founded in 1897 at the University of Maine by 10 seniors led by Marcus Urann, founder of Ocean Spray Cranberries, Inc., who created the Marcus Urann Foundation, which continues to provide funding for many of the Phi Kappa Phi scholarships today.
Phi Kappa Phi was first called the Lambda Sigma Eta Society, an academic honor society open to superior college students regardless of academic discipline. In 1900, the presidents of the universities of Maine, Tennessee and what is now Pennsylvania State, pledged their support for an expanded, national honor society.
With a chapter at each of those institutions, the society was renamed Phi Kappa Phi from the initials of the three Greek words of its motto, “filosofia crateito fot