Galbraith, Swenson Address Phi Beta Kappa Ceremonies

In what the featured speaker, John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, called "an alarmingly learned gathering," the Harvard and Radcliffe chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society yesterday inducted 122 more seniors into its ranks, awarded honorary memberships to five Harvard affiliates and four writers, and presented teaching awards to three other professors during morning ceremonies at Sanders Theatre.

Under overcasts skies, exercises began outside Harvard Hall with a 300-yard long procession of old and new members of the 2206-year-old honor society and continued at sanders with the address by Galbraith and a reading by poet May Swenson.

In front of about 600 people, Galbraith argued that "the age of imperialism is over," adding that "it is the unbounded and universal determination of people to govern themselves." Swenson read "Some Quadrangles," a poem about college that she had written especially for the proceedings.

In addition to electing 71 male students, Harvard's Alpha branch-founded in 1781 and the oldest continuous Phi Beta Kappa chapter in the nation-extended honorary memberships to Konrad Bloch, Higgins Professor of Biochemistry; John E. Dowling '57, professor of Biology, Ben Zion Gold, director of Harvard-Radcliffe Hillel and chaplin for the ceremony; Alexander Duncan Langmuin '31, a former visiting professor of epidemology; and Swenson.

"I always have been an honorable man-now I am an honorary member of the Society," Rabbi Gold joked yesterday at the post ceremony luncheon held at the Fogg Art Museum.

Radcliffe's lot a chapter, established in 1914, selected 51 members of the Class of 1982 as new inductees and tapped for honorary memberships. Pauline Kael, film critic for New Yorker Magazine, Aida Press '48 the editor of Radcliffe Quarterly. Eileen Southern, professor of Afro-American Studies and of Music, and Dtana Trilling, author of Mrs. Harris."

Phi Beta Kappa Society Teaching Awards which carry with them a small sum of money, were presented to Judith N Sliklar. Cowles Professor of Government, David K. Prekard, associate professor of Statistics and Peter F. Stevens, associate curator of the Arnold Arboretum.

Harvard's Alpha chapter usually accepts up to 10 percent of the males in each class. The 71 new inductees join 36 of their classmates, 12 of whom were selected in their junior year and 24 who were elected earlier this academic year. Nominations for membership in Phi Beta Kappa are based on grade point averages and departmental recommendations, with consideration given to about 20 percent of the class. A student faculty committee pores over the relative merits of each candidate's course load, as well as solicited personal recommendations and eventually narrows the field.

Selection for Radcliffe's lot a chapter are done similarly, but it has a higher final acceptance rate, 15 percent, than its male counterpart. Sasan Bush '55, chairman of lota's Committee on Undergraduate. Eligibility said yesterday. Bush added that she found a "small trend towards more Radcliffe Phi Beta Kappas moving towards the science."

Many recipient were aware of the award's career value. It's certainly a nice thing to staple to the old resume." Karen Rochin '82 said yesterday. But Rochin sees the whole Phi Beta Kappa proceeding as representing "the best and worst things about Harvard," adding. "It combines both the pretensions with the tradition."