ΦΒΚ Alpha Association Events

The 2020 annual banquet was postponed due to health concerns about the Covid-19.

The DU Gamma Chapter co-sponsored a lecture entitled, Two-Mile Time Machines: Ice Cores and Abrupt Climate Change, by Dr. Richard Alley, a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and the Evan Pugh University Professor of Geosciences at Penn State.

The Alpha Association of Colorado’s annual meeting was held at the Denver Athletic Club. Jeff Shoemaker, executive director of The Greenway Foundation, spoke about “No Water, No Colorado: The Environmental and Economic Benefits of Engaging in Urban Waterways.”

The Alpha Association’s annual banquet was April 6, 2019, at the Denver Athletic Club. Dr. Tom Noel, Professor of History at the University of Colorado–Denver, spoke on “Color-Oddities: Strangest Things about the Highest State,” a light-hearted overview of Colorado history from Mesa Verde to the “Mustang” at DIA.

Alpha Association members toured the Denver Art Museum’s exhibit, “Rembrandt: Painter as Printmaker” with a docent, followed by dinner afterwards.

The annual meeting was held Sept. 22, 2018, at the Mount Vernon Canyon Club. Greg Carpenter, Artistic and General Director of Opera Colorado, spoke about  “Behind the Curtain: An Insider’s Look at What It Takes to Produce Opera in Denver.”

Alpha Association members and their guests toured the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center.

Frederick M. Lawrence, Secretary and CEO of Phi Beta Kappa, Washington, D.C., and Former President, Brandeis University spoke at the University of Denver on “Speaking about Free Speech: It’s Complicated — Navigating the countervailing demands of free expression and civility, especially on college and university campuses.”

The 2018 annual banquet was held at the Denver Athletic Club. Dr. Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, gave a fascinating talk about “The Animal’s Agenda: Freedom, Compassion, Coexistence, and Hope in the ‘Rage of Inhumanity.”’ The science of animal well-being, compassionate conservation, and personal rewilding offer viable solutions for coming to the rescue of other animals. “The time has come —- indeed, it is long overdue —- to use what we know about the fascinating and diverse inner lives of other animals on their behalf.”

Annual meeting at the Denver Athletic Club, with a talk by Associate Professor Eric Frew of the Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Frew spoke about the use of unmanned aerial vehicles to study severe weather, including tornadoes.