Watch your snail mail for the November newsletter which contains a membership renewal envelope. Remember, all memberships expire
December 31, 2008

Don't miss out on our events and the opportunity to support excellent scholars.

Renew right away!

Full details will appear in the November hardcopy Newsletter, and are listed on the Scholarship page of this website.

Scholarship Awards
In fulfillment of its mission to encourage scholarship and research, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association is honoring the following outstanding Phi Beta Kappa graduate students with $5000 scholarship awards to assist them in completing their educational objectives:

Manisha Bahl*, UCSF - Medicine
Matthew Fujita, UC Berkeley Integrative - Biology
Lauren McGeoch, UC Davis - Ecology
Elizabeth McGuire, UC Berkeley - History
Victor Menaldo, Stanford Political - Science
Joanna Nelson, UC Santa Cruz Environmental - Studies
Veena Singla, UCSF - Cell Biology
Jessica Walter, UC Berkeley - Physics
Leslie Wang, UC Berkeley - Sociology

* Elizabeth B. Reed Awardee

Teaching Excellence Awards
Keenly aware of the great worth of learning and of the extraordinary gifts, diligence, and amplitude of spirit that mark the best in teaching, the Phi Beta Kappa Northern California Association takes pleasure in conferring its 2008 Teaching Excellence Awards upon these distinguished teachers:

Dr. Elizabeth Tallent - English Department - Stanford
Dr. Garrison Sposito - College of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management - UC Berkeley
Dr. John G. Forte - Department of Molecular and Cell Biology - UC Berkeley
Dr. Arthur Havenner - Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics - UC Davis

Board Member Honored

Janiece Nolan, Ph.D., Chapter Liaison Chair, has been named to the Contra Costa Commission for Women's Ninth Annual Hall of Fame in the category "Women Demonstrating Leadership". Dr. Nolan is President/CEO John Muir Physician Network. Her definition of leadership is "I taught leadership courses in the Naval reserve, and the thing we impressed upon people is that your leadership needs to be strong enough that your sailors are ready to die for you".

Janiece has been Chapter Liaison Chair of ΦBK NCA since 2005. She is responsible for maintaining contact with the ΦBK Chapters in Northern California as well as for informing new inductees to ΦBK of the advantages of joining our Association.

See "A conversation with Janiece Nolan of John Muir Physician Network" in the East Bay Business Times for more information about her, and also the Contra Coasta Commission for Women's website.

And... Your Money at Work

Dear Ms. Sandstrom,

I write to express my gratitude to Phi Beta Kappa and its scholarship program, on the occasion of some good news I've recently received.

Here's the situation: in the summer of 1997 I received a Phi Beta Kappa scholarship which allowed me to finish my dissertation, in Russian history at Berkeley. I was thrilled and honored and grateful, and finished the dissertation, but I'm not sure I ever communicated how important that support was, or what its fruits were.

Last year, my revised dissertation became a book, *The House in the Garden: The Bakunin Family and the Romance of Russian Idealism*. It was published by Cornell University Press. I'm gratified to say that it has just won one major award and received honorable mention for another, both given by the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies:

Winner, 2008 W. Bruce Lincoln Book Prize (for best first monograph in history);
Honorable Mention, 2008 Wayne S. Vucinich Prize (for most important contribution to the field)

In a few days, the AAASS will be sending notification of this fact to you at Phi Beta Kappa. But I wanted to write ahead of this fact, both to remind you of the connection and to thank you in your capacity as vice president for scholarships for the wonderful and important work you do. Sometimes it takes a while for this to come to fruition, but these scholarships mean a lot to the people who receive them!

I don't know if you have a library of works produced with PBK money, but if you do, I would be very happy to send you a copy of this book. Or if you just want one for yourself, do let me know!

In the meantime, please accept again my gratitude.

Best wishes,
John Randolph
'97 scholarship recipient

Robert Pringle was one of our Scholarship awardees in 2007, receiving a grant of $5,000 to further his research. He graduated from University of Pennsylvania, received two MSc degrees with distinction from Oxford University, and is a graduate student in ecology at Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology.

At present he's working in Kenya with Professor Todd Palmer of the University of Florida, studying "mutualism." The ΦBKNCA grant helps support him in this research.

The thorny acacia trees of East Africa live in close harmony with ant colonies, and each depends on the other for health and survival - but disrupting that relationship can lead to death and danger, scientists have discovered.

And that, they say, could threaten the habitats of Africa's largest animals in many regions of the continent.

Normally, the huge swollen thorns on the branches of the scrubby trees provide housing for the ants, and they feed on rich nectar from the base of the acacia leaves. In exchange, the tiny biting insects guard and protect the trees by swarming out to repel big browsers like elephants and giraffes that would otherwise feed destructively on the acacia leaves.

The entire article was in the "San Francisco Chronicle", January 11, 2008, main section, "Tiny changes can trigger big evolutionary shifts," by David Perlman (Chronicle Science Editor), p. 6 (in dead-trees version), or online.

Upcoming Activities

We have many interesting tours, about one per month, for our members. Check the newsletter for the latest. And click on the pictures at the left for some of the past events.

Currently, we have scheduled the following events.

• Blackhawk Automotive Museum
  Saturday, January 7, 2009. Deadline: December 17, 2008.
• 23rd Annual Asilomar Conference, Presidents’ Day Weekend, February 13-16, 2009. Deadline December 1, 2008
• New California Academy of Sciences! Friday, February 27, 2009. Deadline: February 6, 2009

Respectfully submitted, , First Vice President - Programs

Are You a Young Phi Bete?

The Board is still trying to form a group of young Phi Betes who might want to have their own activities. However, our first problem is what constitutes a "young Phi Bete." Traditionally for organizations, the cut-off age for "younger" members is 40. But as far as we are concerned, if you still have hair which is not completely gray and feel young at heart, and especially if you want to be in charge of some event, you qualify.

It seems the best way to communicate with younger members is through our website, so please check out the Young Phi Bete page to see if anything is happening for those of us who don't remember life before tv.

University of the Pacific Celebrates Installation of New ΦBK Chapter

Scott Lurding, Associate Secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa National Office, presented the Chi Chapter of California its charter during an installation ceremony held March 31 at the Stockton campus of the University of the Pacific. Chi becomes the eighth Northern California Phi Beta Kappa chapter and the first to be installed in over twenty years.

Following delivery of an inspired and witty keynote address entitled “The Liberal Arts as Whack-a-Mole,” Chi of California chapter president Professor Gregg Camfield recognized the chapter’s charter members, the twenty-six Phi Beta Kappa members of the faculty. Chi also initiated five foundational or honorary members who will serve as advisors to the new chapter. These include the university’s president and provost, Drs. Donald DeRosa and Philip Gilbertson, and three members of the faculty. Twenty-one students, the first Members in Course elected to the chapter, were also initiated.

Following conclusion of the installation ceremony, the celebration continued with a reception at an exhibition of the work of artist Gregory Kondos held at the university art gallery. The evening concluded with a banquet at which several people were recognized for persevering over many years in the successful effort to establish a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, an event in which the university takes great pride.

Dr. Wilson Heefner and Marci Coglianese represented the Northern California Association at the installation. Coglianese addressed the initiates at the banquet, noting that each of them had received a letter from the association and urging them to take advantage of the invitation to join the association at no cost for one year. She also related the many benefits of association membership, including the many social and cultural activities and the graduate scholarships and teaching awards.

For more information, email

Association Honored by the National Society

Our Association received a significant honor at the concluding banquet of the Triennial in Seattle Aug. 6-10, 2003. The award included a check for $1000 that we may use for either our endowment or scholarship fund. We also received the certificate pictured at the left. Click on the image to see an enlarged view.

The wording on the Certificate of Recognition is:

(Signed by Joseph W. Gordon, President and John Churchill, Secretary)