Phi Beta Kappa Society promotes Couper Scholars program

Dr. Robert L. Patten will be representing the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Fresno State as part of the society’s Couper Scholars program. Patten’s keynote lecture, “Liberal Arts for a Lifetime,” will be presented Thursday, Dec. 1, at the Alice Peters Auditorium at 7 p.m. Patten is the Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities at Rice University.

According to Phi Beta Kappa’s Secretary, Dr. John Churchill, “The Mellon Foundation’s generous support of this program with a $100,000 grant has made possible this enriching exchange of ideas and knowledge in support of the liberal arts curriculum.” The Society established the program in 2004 and named it for Richard W. Couper, who was instrumental in helping ΦBK receive the grant. A longtime champion of the liberal arts and sciences, Couper is a former president of the New York Public Library and the Phi Beta Kappa Fellows.  The program will end in May 2006 with the termination of funds from the grant.

During the current academic year, two Couper Scholars will visit selected colleges and universities. Each visit, lasting two or three days, will include a lecture for undergraduates, informal discussions with students and faculty members, and a meeting with the dean of liberal arts and sciences.

Patten is the author of “George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art,” which was named the best biography of the 1990s by the Guardian of London.  A former Guggenheim fellow and Fulbright scholar, he also has been awarded fellowships by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Humanities Center. He has written dozens of articles and reviews on 19th century British literature, art, and culture. Patten graduated from Swarthmore College and earned his doctorate at Princeton.

Founded in 1776, Phi Beta Kappa is the nation’s oldest academic honor society. It has chapters at 270 institutions, and half a million members throughout the country. Its mission is to advocate education in the liberal arts and sciences, to recognize academic excellence, and to foster freedom of thought and expression. Among the society’s programs are literary and academic awards, lectureships, fellowships, a professorship and publication of The American Scholar, an award-winning quarterly journal.