From PBK Boston Secretary and Treasurer Thomas Laage (Dec, 2023):

 

Dear Members and Friends of the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Boston,

We would like to invite you to participate and contribute to our mission of uniting members of PBK in the greater Boston area to promote scholarship, friendship, and cultural interests.

As the year winds down, the Board members wish to thank all of you for your continued support of and interest in the mission of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and its Chapters and Associations.

The motto of Phi Beta Kappa literally means “Love of wisdom is the guide of life,” although the more modern translation of our organization has this as “Love of learning is the guide of life.”

Perhaps learning is easier to understand than wisdom!

You are all members of PBK because of your love of learning and we won’t try to define wisdom, deferring to those who are wiser!

But an analogy may help: Learning is like the juice pressed from the grape or the nectar taken from the flower, while wisdom is like the wine or the honey: learning transformed into knowledge, knowledge enlarged with practice, and experience refined into wisdom.

There are no better companions on life’s journey than others who also love learning and who would perhaps wish to love wisdom as well.

Such good company is by no means a given in this world – it must be sought, but you are fortunate that with a little effort it is readily available. This good company is available through over 50 PBK Associations like ours, which offers members and friends a rich array of events and outings to foster and grow a love of learning. 

Among other events this past year, we met in April for a walk on Boston’s Freedom Trail, held our Annual Meeting in June (where we welcomed Gabe Ciociola to the Board), continued our monthly PBK Boston Book Club meetings via Zoom (alternating fiction and non-fiction selections), hosted a Key Connections ice cream social in September, enjoyed a round of miniature golf at Puttshack in the Seaport District in October, and had a virtual Quiz Night in November. We are planning an evening of bowling at LuckyStrike in the Fenway later this month.

These are a few examples of the events that PBK Boston plans each year, with the shared activities less important than the aim of bringing together PBK members in an atmosphere of friendship, love of learning, and ethical values.

We would like to invite you to participate and contribute to our mission of uniting members of PBK in the greater Boston area to promote scholarship, friendship, and cultural interests. If you graduated from a school outside of the Boston area, we welcome you to the PBK Boston Association and are happy to serve as your local alumni organization.

If you graduated from a school far from the Boston area, we are pleased to function as your local alumni organization and help to provide a social milieu for you among our diverse membership.

Our dues are devoted solely to supporting our activities and to our annual $1000 scholarship, awarded to a sophomore, junior, or senior student attending a college with a PBK chapter in the Greater Boston area, in a competition based on an essay about love of learning, their transcripts, and letters of recommendation.

Friends and significant others of members are always welcome at our events and we would encourage you to add your name and email address to our mailing list even if you are not in a position to contribute financially at this time.

Please visit our website at www.pbkboston.org and click on the Membership tab at the top of the home page for more information. (If you graduated from college in the last 12 months, there are no dues levied for your first year of membership in calendar year 2019 or 2020.)

Whether you become a member or not, I look forward to meeting you soon at an upcoming event!

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Best regards,

Thomas Laage

Secretary and Treasurer, PBK Association of Boston