History Honor Society: Phi Alpha Theta

Phi Alpha Theta (PAT) is the national history honor society.

Linfield’s chapter is active and open to you if you have the appropriate academic qualifications:

• Completed a minimum of four college history courses
• 3.1 GPA in those history courses
• 3.0 minimum GPA overall

Membership requires a one-time fee, but it is good for life. You will receive a membership certificate and four issues of the PAT journal, The Historian.

Being a member of an honor society always looks great on your resume!

If you write a strong senior thesis, you may be invited to present your research at the regional PAT Annual Meeting.

This is an excellent chance to practice your presentation skills and to gain additional professional experience.

The location of the annual meeting changes every year; sometimes it’s a short road trip to Seattle, and other years we board a plane to Montana. No matter where it is, it’s always a fun and rewarding experience.

Some recent PAT Annual Meeting student presenters include:

• Elisia Harder, “Between Two Fires: Gender and American Socialism in the Progressive Era.”
  (2020 - canceled due to COVID-19)
• Mel Van Hurck, “One of Us: The Inter-Racial Relations of Minorities in the West, 1940-1950.”
  (2020 - canceled due to COVID-19)
• Paige Phillipson, “The Cost of Pride: North Carolina’s United Daughters of the Confederacy in the Lost Cause Era”
  (2020 - canceled due to COVID-19)
• Hannah Fisher, “Selling Childhood: How the Middle Class Used Children in the Anti-Tuberculosis Movement (1930s-1940s)”
  (2019)
• Ruby Guyot, “Horses, Heroism, and Heimat: Rebuilding and Reinstating Gender Roles in Die Mädels vom Immenhof”
  (2019)

Fun fact:

Linfield students have won the PAT Lynn W. Turner Prize for Best Undergraduate Paper four times since the 1990s.

Past winners include:

• Jillaine Cook (2015)
• Robin Cangle (2006)
• Alan Edwards (1993)
• Lisa Scanlon (1991)