Pi Gamma Mu Honor Society - Message to Colleagues
Please, may we have a moment of your time to tell you why you, as a social-science professor, would find a chapter of Pi Gamma Mu to be beneficial to you, your students, and your college or university?
Dear Colleague,
The members of the Board of Trustees of the Pi Gamma Mu international honor society in social sciences invite
you to consider the formation of a Pi Gamma Mu chapter at your college or university. We issue this invitation
based on our own experience at our schools, where our Pi Gamma Mu chapters encourage interdisciplinary thinking
about society, humanity, and public affairs. Pi Gamma Mu recognizes academic excellence in the fields of anthropology,
criminal justice, economics, cultural geography, history, international relations, social philosophy, social
work, sociology, political science, and psychology. Our mission is to encourage and promote excellence in the Social Sciences and to uphold and nurture scholarship, leadership, and service.
Pi Gamma Mu was founded in 1924 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and Southwestern College in Kansas. The honor society is a member of, and provides leadership to, the national Association of College Honor Societies. Our members have included President Lyndon B. Johnson, anthropologist Margaret Mead, Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin, U. S. Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, and Harvard University sociology-department founder Pitirim Sorokin.
Here is what Pi Gamma Mu tries to do for you, your students, and your college or university that we believe
will be beneficial to you:
-
Each initiate receives lifetime
membership, an elegant membership certificate (comparable in quality
to college diplomas), a membership card, a lapel pin, the online
Pi Gamma Mu Newsletter, and access to our well-regarded online journal, the International Social Science Review (ISSR).
- A Pi Gamma Mu chapter is an effective way for you and your colleagues to recognize your most accomplished
social-science students--an appropriate way to thank your honor students for their commitment and to encourage
other students to emulate their dedicated classmates. All too often, honor students whose professors do not
arrange for their initiation into an honor society receive no recognition at all for their achievement!
- One multidisciplinary honor society can be easier to administer than many smaller groups.
- Our multidisciplinary approach allows people in various disciplines/majors to socialize with and learn
from each other. If your college's social-science faculty members are separated into various departments, a Pi
Gamma Mu chapter can be the stimulus for interdepartmental gatherings of professors and/or students. Would
you like to get a stimulating speaker for such a gathering? Pi Gamma Mu will contribute $300 to help you
pay an honorarium! Some Pi Gamma Mu chapters operate social-service projects, so you can easily recruit collaborators
to help implement such projects if service learning is a priority for you. (It's a priority to us, too, and
every international convention features a social-service project.)
- Encouraging your students to present their excellent research papers at Pi Gamma Mu conventions can help
jump-start your best students' desire to pursue a graduate degree and Pi Gamma Mu will often help pay for
some of their travel expenses. Pi Gamma Mu holds an international convention every three years. By design,
our conventions are student-oriented. The October 2011 triennial international convention will be held in
the Washington, D. C., metropolitan area. Students establish bonds with other students from colleges and universities
all over the United States and other countries as well.
Chapter Sponsor Alice Taylor-Colbert is flanked
by four student members who have just presented research papers at a Pi Gamma Mu conference.
- Pi Gamma Mu offers a scholarship program in which student members compete for funding for graduate school.
Every year, we present three scholarships for $2000 each and seven scholarships for $1000 each, for one year
of graduate study. Any member of the society is eligible to apply as a graduating senior or as a prospective
graduate student.
Students (as well as professors) have an opportunity to publish in an international journal. Virtually
every edition of the International Social Science Review contains the work of at least one chapter sponsor
and at least one student member of the honor society, and publishers have asked and received permission to
reprint student-written articles in other widely distributed publications.
A Pi Gamma Mu chapter can be invigorating for you, your students, and your college in all of these very
significant ways.
Starting a Pi Gamma Mu chapter is not difficult at all, and we'll guide you through the process. If you send
an E-mail message to our executive director at [email protected] , or call her at (620) 221-3128,
we will give you a call and/or mail some easy-to-follow information to you, along with a copy of the ISSR.
And please visit our Web site at http://www.pigammamu.org/start-chapter.html .
Please send an E-mail message to the executive director, even if you are unable to spearhead the creation of a Pi Gamma
Mu chapter at your college or university. Help us to do a better job as the social-science honor society by
telling us how we can deliver this invitation in a more effective way or by giving us the name of a colleague
who you think might be interested in being a chapter sponsor.
Delegates engage in stimulating proceedings during a Pi Gmma Mu regional conference
We deeply appreciate your kindness in taking a few moments to read this message. Best regards from all of
us at Pi Gamma Mu.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Larry Heck
International President - Pi Gamma Mu
Chair of the Social Sciences Division, Professor
of Sociology
Division of Social Science – Newman University
3100 McCormick
Wichita, KS 67213-2097
316-942-4291, ext. 2224
[email protected] |
Dr. Suzanne Rupp
Executive Director
Pi Gamma Mu Headquarters
1001 Millington Street, Suite B
Winfield, Kansas 67156
(620) 221-3128
[email protected] |
