Phi Beta Kappa Initiates New Members during 2019 Convocation

News Office
March 18, 2019

The Phi Beta Kappa chapter at Washington and Lee University welcomed 46 members of the junior and senior classes into the prestigious honor society at the Phi Beta Kappa/Society of the Cincinnati Convocation on Sunday, March 17. All of the inductees were accepted into Phi Beta Kappa based on their exceptional academic achievements.

Frederick M. Lawrence, CEO and secretary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, gave the convocation address. Lawrence is a distinguished lecturer at the Georgetown Law Center and has previously served as president of Brandeis University, dean of the George Washington University Law School and visiting professor and senior research scholar at Yale Law School. An accomplished scholar, teacher and attorney, Lawrence is one of the nation’s leading experts on civil rights, free expression and bias crimes.

The chapter inducted as an alumni member Thomas E. Camden ’76, associate professor and head of Special Collections & Archives at W&L, in recognition of his scholarly impact on both the archival community and Washington and Lee.

The chapter gave Robert V. Masi and Chi Shing A. (Adrian) Lam the Phi Beta Kappa J. Brown Goehring Sophomore Award, which honors J. Brown Goehring, professor of chemistry emeritus who, during his 38-year career at W&L, spent 22 years as secretary/treasurer of the University’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

This year’s initiates are:

Class of 2019

• Erin An
• Jocelyn Grayce Anker
• John Xavier Broderick
• Joseph Carmody
• Katherine Dau
• Susan Lindsey Fields
• George Lincoln Frank
• Ethiopia Demmelash Getachew
• John Herschel Gipson, III
• Maxwell Gold
• Jeongju Ha
• Ethan Mayer Hartman
• Lorena Hernandez Barcena
• Teressa Rae Hill
• Faith Abigayle Isbell
• Kathryn Sinclair McEvoy
• Cordelia Richards Robinson Peters
• Eleanor Evangeline Rose
• Christopher Scott Simmons, Jr.
• Martha Davis Straske
• Christopher Tobin
• Sutton Paige Travis
• Heeth Varnedoe, V
• Pengrui Wang

Class of 2020

• Harris McLean Billings
• Laura Elaine Bruce
• Balen Essak
• GennaEve Feirson
• Katherine Ingram
• Chantal Iosso
• Tiffany Bokyoung Ko
• Stevan Andrew Kriss
• Maxwell Andrew Lehman
• Taylor Griffin Link
• Kara G. Lough
• Chase Walton Major
• Nicholas Bennett Mauer
• Abigail Kathleen Nason
• Trang Ha Nguyen
• Prakriti Panthi
• Samuel Halstead Pumphrey
• Peyton Jean Smith
• Kana K. White
• Hannah Margaret Witherell
• Matthew O’Neal Withers
• Jiahao Zhang

Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776 at the College of William and Mary. Its motto is “Love of learning is the guide of life.”