The Phi Beta Kappa Society is the nation's oldest and most prestigious undergraduate honors organization. For more than 200 years, the Society has pursued its mission of fostering and recognizing excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, and its distinctive emblem, a golden key, is widely recognized as a symbol of academic distinction. Phi Beta Kappa was founded on December 5, 1776, at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.
The first society to have a Greek letter name, and in its initial period at William and Mary it introduced the essential characteristics of such societies—an oath of secrecy, a badge, mottoes in Latin and Greek, a code of laws, an elaborate form of initiation, a seal, and a special handclasp. The Florida State University chapter of Phi Beta Kappa: Alpha of Florida, was established in 1935, and was the first chapter authorized in the state.