Phi Beta Kappa Holds Ceremony

After being inducted into the country’s oldest undergraduate honor society, members of the Class of 2002 enjoyed a humorous speech and a poem about ambition at Phi Beta Kappa’s literary exercises yesterday.

This piece of the ceremony, which began 212 years ago, traditionally features a poem and an oration.

Simon Schama, a cultural and philosophical historian who teaches history at Columbia University, elicited laughs and a lengthy round of applause with his speech, “The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Ozzy Osbourne.”

Schama said today’s society should reclaim the ability to use spoken language well, particularly in the face of pop culture and sound bytes.

He advocated for increased study of rhetoric.

“What if instead of taking expository writing, you had to take expository speaking?” Schama said.

As an example of the shifting standards applied to public addresses, he mentioned former University President Edward Everett, who Schama said spoke for two hours before Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in 1863.

According to Schama, the speech was rhetorically excellent, but did not stand out—and was thus somewhat overlooked by history—because most of the speeches at the time fit the same high standard.

Schama went on to joke about Everett’s presidency.

“Everett was not the most auspicious presidency. He kept getting into trouble,” Schama said.

With Schama’s quip, University President Lawrence H. Summers responded by shaking his hands in the air emphatically, a gesture that received a hefty applause from the audience.

Charles Wright, a professor of English at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, also presented his poem “Homage to Mark Rothko.”

The poem described the ambition for Rothko’s work in becoming a master of post-modernism.

Wright said Rothko’s drive could apply to the newest members of Phi Beta Kappa.

“Now I know that ambition is the middle name of you sitting out there today,” he said. “But you need to know that a life of ambition is a long road, and you need a good pair of shoes.”

Also at yesterday’s literary exercises, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Minister of Memorial Church Peter J. Gomes presented three faculty members with awards for their teaching.

Gurney Professor of English Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature James Engell, Leverett House Master and Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Howard Georgi ’68 and Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government Peter A. Hall all received the distinctions.

Along with a personalized citation, the recipients of the teaching awards were given an envelope with contents that were kept secret, but which Gomes said he remembered being “thrilled” about when he was given the award last year.

Schama, too, was awarded one of these teaching awards as a Harvard professor in 1987.

Three faculty members, one visiting scholar and the two speakers were also given honorary membership yesterday into the Massachusetts chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

Following the speeches, members of Phi Beta Kappa and their guests attended an informal lunch at Dudley. The lunch was to be following with a “secret ritual,” said Diana L. Eck, a Harvard professor who is the president of Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa chapter.

—Staff writer Katherine M. Dimengo can be reached at dimengo@fas.harvard.edu.