A group of 94 junior and senior students were praised for past accomplishments and warned of worldly troubles as they were inducted into the Brandeis chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society at a ceremony Saturday afternoon in Spingold Theater. Phi Beta Kappa is a national organization with 270 chapters at colleges and universities across the country. Students selected for membership must place within the top 10 percent of their class and are chosen based on the variety and quality of their academic career as well as faculty comments in nomination letters. Juniors must rank among the top one percent of their class to qualify for selection.

Hosted by Prof. Andreas Teuber (PHIL), president of the Brandeis chapter, Saturday's initiation was the 45th in the society's history here. The event featured the induction of 79 members of the Class of 2006 and seven members of the Class of 2007. Eight current seniors were inducted last year.

A procession of inductees slowly entered the auditorium and sat down following a brief introduction by Teuber, in which he called the society the oldest and most prestigious of its kind in the United States.

Teuber also acknowledged the inductees' friends and families, many of whom were members of an audience which filled the theater to the upper rows of the balcony.

The event's featured address was delivered by Sarah Sewall, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Sewall spoke of a fear which she said has pervaded American society since Sept. 11, 2001 and the subsequent War on Terror.

"Fear has helped drain our personal discourse of honesty," she said, urging the audience to use commitment to intellectual endeavors to further the national debate over issues of freedom and security.

Sewall said that new meanings of war and terror must be defined by the next generation of young leaders and that these leaders must work to find a balance in modern society.

"There's always work to be done checking our fears with rationale," she said.

Earlier, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe offered students a few congratulatory words, and Prof. John Schrecker (HIST) gave a brief history of Phi Beta Kappa, providing highlights from over 200 years of the organization's history.

Schrecker said the society was formed as a secret fraternity in 1776 at the College of William and Mary by a small group of students plotting at a local tavern.

"Appropriately for a frat, we were founded at a bar," he said.

Although the order was originally secretive in nature and featured a handshake and seal known only to members, Schrecker said, the group opened up during the 19th century, becoming a merit-based honors society and accepting its first female members in 1875.

At an outdoor reception following the ceremony, several inductees reflected on their society membership.

"It's certainly an honor," Andrey Levin '06 said of his induction, noting the prestige and career connections that come with membership to the group. "It's definitely something I'm pretty happy about.