ΦBK Receives National Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award
John Churchill (left) accepts the Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award from
CCAS President Matthew C. Moen in Portland, Ore., November 14.
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The national Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences (CCAS) has recognized the Phi Beta Kappa Society with its inaugural Arts and Sciences Advocacy Award. The announcement was made at the CCAS Annual Meeting held November 14 in Portland, Ore.
The award honors an individual or organization demonstrating exemplary advocacy for the arts and sciences, flowing from a deep commitment to the intrinsic worth of liberal arts education.
In presenting the award to Phi Beta Kappa Secretary John Churchill, CCAS President Matthew C. Moen, dean of arts and sciences at the University of South Dakota, said that “there was no debate among the CCAS Board members that Phi Beta Kappa should be the first recipient” of the award, for “exemplary advocacy of the liberal arts and sciences is their mission, dating back to their founding by five students at the College of William and Mary in 1776.”
Moen further stated that “Phi Beta Kappa lives by the motto ‘the love of learning is the guide of life,’ and they have brought that magnificent intellectual spirit to more than 600,000 members, and to chapters at 276 colleges and universities. Phi Beta Kappa embraces principles essential to the academy, and to the work of deans, including free inquiry, and liberty of thought and expression.”
In accepting the award, Secretary Churchill applauded CCAS “for the very idea of this award.”
“We live in an age in which the value of education in the arts and sciences seems increasingly ignored, misunderstood, or even opposed,” Churchill added. “Instituting such an award brings new attention to these worthy pursuits, and offers us a platform from which to proclaim, explain, and defend education in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences and mathematics.”
CCAS is the largest association of arts and sciences deans, representing 600 deans whose colleges and universities collectively educate some four million students. CCAS is headquartered at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.