Phi Beta Kappa became sufficient as an all-campus honor society for liberal arts colleges, but no honor society could serve as such for the universities encompassing both liberal education and also technological and professional education, a mission to which the newly burgeoning land-grant universities of the time were dedicated.

That was to change in 1897 when the first organizational meeting of Lambda Sigma Eta (later named Phi Kappa Phi), the nation's first all-discipline honor society, was held in Coburn Hall at the University of Maine under the leadership of undergraduate student Marcus Urann.

[2]: 8 Those selected for invitation into the society would be the top ten students of the senior class whose rank did not fall below the 90th percentile for the four years of work at the university.

[2]: 7  In all, the society was founded by ten senior students, two faculty members, and the university president, Abram Winegaard Harris.

[7] A year or so later, the name was changed to the Morrill Society, in honor of the sponsor of the Congressional Act which provided for land-grant universities.

Pennsylvania State University's President George W. Atherton cautioned that using Greek letters to label the society would be "too much like aping other organizations", and President Charles W. Dabney of the University of Tennessee did not want to accept institutions that already had a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.

'The Phi Kappa Phi on the other hand stands not only for the democracy of education, making no distinction between different lines of investigation, such as literature, history, science, home economics, agriculture, veterinary medicine, and law, but for sound scholarship based on four years of collegiate work.

'[2]: 11 It was later asserted that the society's aim was not to replace older societies, but to "help raise the broader educational program initiated by our government when it established the land-grant system, to the appreciation of scholarly worth whether the subject matter be strictly academic or of a more vocational type.

"[2]: 36  Its mission is "to recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others.

[2]: 65 In a 1969 Special Convention, the motto devised in 1900, "The Love of Learning Rules all Mankind", was changed to "Let the Love of Learning Rule Mankind" due to membership insistence that the former was, in the words of one member, "the most barefaced lie that had ever been cast in bronze.

[1] The society's Greek letter name was selected from its motto Φιλοσοφία Kρατείτω Φωτῶν (Philosophía Krateítõ Phõtôn) or "Let the love of learning rule humanity".

This in turn is surrounded by a crenelated line that represents the battlements and walls of Troy and a technological aspect of the ancient Greek culture.

The journal features articles by scholars inside and outside the academic community, poetry, and reviews of current books and periodical literature.

[18] Baird's Manual of College Fraternities notes that aim of these awards "is not to give the recipient something which may encourage complacency, but to challenge the member to continued excellence.

Each chapter may send one official delegate to the convention, which is held in a major city in the United States.