Neil Gibson, an agricultural business major at California State University, Fresno, was selected as one of 60 Phi Kappa Phi 2005 Graduate Fellowship recipients in the nation.
He also received the additional honor of being named the Hohenstein Fellow from the Western Region of the United States. Gibson will graduate in May and has been accepted to pursue a master’s degree by the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, a Johns Hopkins University division, located in Washington, D.C.
The Phi Kappa Phi Fellowship Program awards sixty $5,000 Fellowships and forty $2,000 Awards of Excellence annually for post-graduate study at accredited institutions of higher learning. The fellowships are awarded on a competitive basis for first-year graduate or professional study. Each chapter may nominate one student for the national competition. Gibson, who has maintained a GPA of 4.0 throughout his entire academic career, was nominated by the Fresno State Chapter.
A 2000 graduate of Lucerne Valley High School in San Bernardino County, Gibson is a student in the selective Smittcamp Family Honors College at Fresno State. Among his many activities and awards, he is on the President’s List for academic achievement, served as an intern in the office of Congressman Calvin Dooley, was elected the president of Fresno State’s Associated Students during his junior year, was selected as a Kenneth L. Maddy Scholar in 2003 and served in Governor Schwarzenegger’s Office of Protocol in 2004.
Founded in 1897 at the University of Maine, Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest, largest and most selective all-discipline honor society. There are nearly 300 chapters on campuses of colleges and universities across the United States, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
The Fresno State chapter was established in 1953 and is one of the most awarded chapters in the country. Students are selected on the basis of their grade point average. This year for students to be eligible, GPA requirements for second semester juniors were 3.73, seniors 3.65, and post-baccalaureate students 4.0. The chapter also recognizes alumni, administrators, faculty and staff who have been extraordinary in promoting academic excellence at the university.
