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The Black Pyramid Senior Honor Society (BPS) held an induction ceremony for its 11 new members in the Druker Humanities Commons of the Life Science and Philosophy Building (LSP) this past Friday evening. As an exclusive, ‘secret’ senior honor society, BPS is distinguished from every other honor society and club on campus.
Founded in 1821, the members of the society are chosen through a rigorous screening of academic intellectuality, extracurricular activities, and community involvement. The first qualification is class standing; the society reaches out to members in the junior class each year with the highest GPAs. A significant benefit of being a member of the society is that it has an outstanding connection with its alumni members.
Katharine Snider, the current dean of Weis house and a BPS alumna, gave a speech at the induction ceremony. Her speech delivered the message of the importance of the quality of the society that brings people of different agendas to work towards a unifying goal.
“This society has been on campus for so long, but it also has a long way to go,” Snider said.
She encouraged the inductees to develop a sense of responsibility and duty towards not only the society but the campus and Lancaster community as well. The extracurricular variety and diversity of backgrounds within BPS are multifarious and meld together to create a pool of experience.
“Our society brings people of different causes together. We share similar experiences and we help each other out,” said Amanda Loh ’13, president of the Society. It is through this point that the society combines the different backgrounds of the members and are of help to each other in a different outlet than their other extracurriculars.
President Daniel Porterfield was a guest speaker at the ceremony as well, emphasizing that BPS is about more than a congregation of those with the highest grade point averages in the class. He remarked on the qualities of the members of the society. “It is more about two ideals; character and good grades,” Porterfield said. He then congratulated the new members for their hard work and leadership qualities and asked them to develop a sense of peace, respect, and responsibility which will ultimately serve for the growth of the society. The height of the ceremony was the presentation of the society’s black and gold silk cords to each of the eleven inductees by President Porterfield and Dean Snider.
The society’s aim to improve intellectuality is of foremost importance to the members. On top of this, this year so far, the society raised over a thousand dollars for a College program that aims to develop senior intellectual engagement.
“BPS has some exciting goals this year. The society will be holding ‘TED’ talks with distinguished personalities,” Loh said. “We want to integrate academic ideals and publicity through internet videos.”
It is initiatives similar to this that separate BPS from other honor societies on campus. BPS is notable for hosting academic lectures and speakers for the senior class.
Questions? Email Berv at bopong@fandm.edu.