Correction appended
The 20 members of the Class of 2013 with the highest cumulative grade point averages will be inducted as Junior Members in Course into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society's Dartmouth Chapter in a public ceremony in Filene Auditorium at 5:15 p.m. on Monday.
This year's early inductees are Tim Brown '13, John Ceremsak '13, Maura Farley '13, Angela Gauthier '13, Anuj Gupta '13, Claire Hornig '13, Leigh Ann Humphries '13, Joshua Kornberg '13, Grace Kouba '13, Priya Krishna '13, Veronique Lecocq '13, Michael Lenkeit '13, Marissa Lynn '13, Joel Malkin '13, Anna Morenz '13, Marina Romani '13, Joanna Schneider '13, Victor Tsui '13, Anna Wsciubiak '13 and Jenna Zerker '13.
Students do not apply for early induction, but the chapter votes members into the society based on their academic excellence. The students were informed they would be receiving the award on Sept. 14, according to Kouba. To many, the news came as a surprise.
"I didn't know it existed until recently, but it definitely is a pleasant by-product," Gupta said.
Gupta, an economics major, said that he has benefited from collaborating with other students in studying for classes. Most students attributed their academic success to their passion for their majors.
"I've been lucky enough to find a field of study that I'm really interested in and I'm really passionate about," Kouba, a linguistics major and creative writing minor, said. "Doing well in classes has been sort of a by-product of my excitement about my major and my classes."
She said that she feels lucky to have found great mentors in the linguistics department, which "takes great care of its students."
Brown, an economics and government double major, said that his success was aided by taking courses with professors he found interesting.
The students have faced their fair share of academic challenges. As a member of the heavyweight crew team, Brown said he has had to balance his studies with away trips, and he has had to find ways to do homework while on the road.
Adjusting to Dartmouth's winter weather for the first time during his freshman year was a challenge, according to Gupta. He said that taking classes during the 10A and 2A time slots was also difficult, as he was accustomed to having a schedule without classes at these times.
Hornig said that as an environmental studies major and a classics minor, taking two major courses and one minor course during her junior winter was taxing, but she came out of it feeling accomplished.
The main advice honorees would give to underclassmen is to choose classes wisely, they said.
"Don't take any classes because you feel like you should," Kouba said. "Find the classes that make you excited to do the work and take those."
While the honorees work hard to maintain their grades, they are also involved in extracurricular activities. In addition to being on the heavyweight crew team, Brown is the president of the Inter-Fraternity Council.
Going forward, Kouba is considering applying to law school, while Gupta is hoping to go into finance. Hornig is planning on taking a year off to explore her options.
Dartmouth's Phi Beta Kappa chapter was founded in 1787, making it the fourth oldest chapter in the nation. As such, the Dartmouth chapter is allowed more flexibility in how it picks its members than are other chapters around the nation, according to President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and Secretary of the Alpha of New Hampshire chapter Kate Soule. The chapter, for example, is able to consider engineering majors as potential members, though most national chapters cannot.
This year is the chapter's 225th anniversary. The public induction ceremony will feature a lecture by University of California, Los Angeles history professor Teofilo Ruiz titled "The Witch Craze in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe."
Honorees have also been invited to a dinner at the Hanover Inn, where they will meet visitors from other Phi Beta Kappa organizations and Phi Beta Kappa faculty. The dinner will feature a talk regarding the history of the Alpha of New Hampshire the statewide unit of Phi Beta Kappa and its celebrations by Soule, as well as congratulatory remarks by Interim College President Carol Folt and Phi Beta Kappa Society secretary John Churchill.
Krishna is a member of The Dartmouth Senior Staff.
