Information | Application

Requirements for Membership: 
Minimum 3.1 GPA  in history courses (LSU and transfer) 
Minimum 12 hours in history (3 four-unit classes) 
Minimum 3.0 GPA in 2/3 of remaining coursework 

Cost: $30 lifetime membership/initiation fee. 

Benefits: Each initiate receives a membership certificate and card, as well as a one-year subscription to the society's journal, The Historian.  Students entering graduate school in history are eligible for one of five scholarships.  Faculty members are eligible for two book awards.  Members are also eligible for Civil Service Benefits in the U.S. Government.  Because membership is recognized by the US Civil Service Commission, it qualifies a member for grade GS-7 rather than GS-5 on the pay scale. 

Information about the Society:  The International Honor Society in History, Phi Alpha Theta, was organized at the University of Arkansas on March 17, 1921.  Since that time it has grown to more than 740 chapters in fifty states and has more chapters than any of the other accredited honor societies holding membership in the Association of College Honor Societies.  The total number of initiates since its inception is more than 200,000.  Phi Alpha Theta is viewed as the highest-rated departmental honor society and is second only to Phi Beta Kappa on a national level among the academic honor societies. Phi Alpha Theta is composed of chapters in properly accredited colleges and universities.  All students in these institutions who have completed the required number of history courses and are maintaining high standards in their college or university studies are eligible for membership. Phi Alpha Theta is a professional society whose purpose is to promote the study of history through the encouragement of research, good teaching, publication, and the exchange of learning and ideas among historians.  It seeks to bring students, teachers, and writers of history together both intellectually and socially;  and it encourages and assists historical research and publication by its members in a variety of ways. (This is Phi Alpha Theta, 1) 

Activities of the Society:  Phi Alpha Theta performs many services for its members.  At its biennial convention and yearly regional conferences, students, undergraduate and graduate alike, are provided with the opportunity to meet distinguished historians and to present research papers they have written.