Virginia Tech recently launched the twelfth chapter of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. The society was founded in 2005 at Yale University and Howard University to create a network of scholars who “serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service, and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy.”
Edward A. Bouchet (1852-1918) graduated from Yale College in 1874. He went on to be the first African American to earn a doctorate from an American university when he earned a Ph.D. in physics at Yale University in 1876.
Other universities with chapters of the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society are: Cornell University, Rutgers University, the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, George Washington University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Diego, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Washington University in St. Louis.
The first seven inductees in the society from Virginia Tech are Christian Matheis, Ashley Robinson, Elizabeth Jamison, Kelly Cross, Nikhil Jain, Nicole J. Johnson, and Monica Motley. They will be formally inducted as society members at a ceremony on the campus of Yale University.
