Phi Alpha Theta
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Phi Alpha Theta is an American honor society for undergraduate students, graduate students, and professors of history. As of 2004 there were over 800 local chapters of Phi Alpha Theta nationwide.
[edit] Description
Phi Alpha Theta was established on March 17, 1921 at the University of Arkansas by Professor Nels Cleven. Cleven had become convinced in his time at the university that a fraternity of scholars (which would accept men or women) was important for the study of history -- he invited students to a meeting to form the society, then called the "University Historical Society", on the 14th of March, and the society was officially recognized on the 17th. In April, the decision was made for the society to be known by the Greek letters Phi Alpha Theta.
The current membership requirements are relatively inclusive for an honor society -- undergraduate students must have a 3.0 overall grade point average, at least a 3.1 in their history courses, and be in the top 35% of their class. Students need not be majoring in history, but must have taken at least 12 credit hours of history classes. The qualifications for graduate students are more stringent: they must have a GPA of better than 3.5 and have completed approximately 30% of the residence requirements for the Master's Degree.
The society is a charter member of the Association of College Honor Societies, and has over 275,000 members, with over 9,000 new members joining each year. Phi Alpha Theta publishes a quarterly historical journal entitled The Historian, which has over 12,500 individual subscribers and 1,000 library subscribers. The society's national headquarters and the journal's editorial offices are located at the University of South Florida. The Historian splits the space in its quarterly issues between articles and book reviews. The book review section of the journal has been based at Ohio Wesleyan University since 1994. Thomas G. Alexander of Brigham Young University is the current president of Phi Alpha Theta, and Graydon A. Tunstall, Jr. of USF is Executive Director. David R. Carr of USF is managing editor of The Historian, and Richard Spall, Jr. of OWU is the journal's book review editor.
