Phi Alpha Theta is the national history honors society. Formed in 1921, PAT now has more than 800 chapters and more than 300,000 members nationwide.
At the end of their third year, History majors and minors who have earned a 3.5 or higher gpa will be invited to join the Ithaca College chapter of Phi Alpha Theta.
Our students also have the opportunity to present their original research at the regional Phi Alpha Theta conference, which is held each spring at colleges throughout the Southern Tier/Western New York region. Ithaca College hosted this conference in 2016.
Many students have earned awards for the papers they have presented at the annual conference. Recent essay prize winners include:
2016 Alyssa Gilliam, “For the Cultivation of Still Wider and More Unselfish Interests: Female University Students and Community in Great Britain, 1850-1910"
2015 Emily Gallik, "Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Defense of Good Women (1540, 1545): Arguing for the Moral and Political Status of Women in Henrician England"
2015 Bud Gankhuyag, “Between Representation & Reality: Orientalist Imagining and Racial Construction of the Early South Asian Diaspora in the United States”
2014 Charlie Russak, “Let the Servant be Treated as a Man: Domestic Servitude, Masculinity, and the Expansion of the Franchise"
2013 Caitlin O’Connell, "Crime and Punishment: A Comparison of Trials and Capital Punishment in Ancien Régime and Revolutionary Paris"