About The Phi Beta Kappa First Year Experience Essay Prize 

The Catholic University of America Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society is pleased to partner with the First Year Experience in offering a prize for the best essay written in the FYE. Phi Beta Kappa was founded in 1776 to celebrate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences and to champion freedom of thought. The mission of the Phi Beta Kappa Society finds special support at Catholic University, where the fundamental dialogue between faith and reason, as well as its profound cognitive implications, informs both the professional and the intellectual development of our students—regardless of their major or specialization. 

This intellectual formation begins in the FYE, which forms the foundational liberal education core of the first-year curriculum at the Catholic University of America, bringing first-year students together in small Learning Communities for a shared, yearlong experience. Within Learning Communities, students take a sequence of four core classes in Philosophy, Theology, and English. The FYE is inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition and guided by the principles of liberal education. It prepares students not only for the challenges of citizenship and morality, but also for all of their subsequent academic work. In FYE classes, students learn to think more rigorously, read more perceptively, and write more persuasively, while confronting the great questions that have shaped human history and that continue to challenge us today. The perspective developed by first-year students in these classes prepares them to continue the rest of their studies at Catholic University. 

Dr. Taryn Okuma ~ Chair, Phi Beta Kappa Prize Committee

Dr. Jennifer Paxton ~ Co-Chair, Phi Beta Kappa Prize Committee

Phi Beta Kappa First Year Experience Essay Award Winners