What is Psi
Chi?
Psi Chi is the National Honor
Society in Psychology, founded in 1929 for the purposes of
encouraging, stimulating, and maintaining excellence in
scholarship, and advancing the science of psychology.
Membership is open to graduate and undergraduate men and women
who are making the study of psychology one of their major
interests, and who meet the minimum qualifications. Psi Chi is
a member of the Association of College Honor Societies and is
an affiliate of the American Psychological Association (APA)
and the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Psi Chi's
sister honor society is Psi Beta, the national honor society
in psychology for community and junior colleges.
Psi Chi functions as a
federation of chapters located at over 1,000 senior colleges
and universities in the USA and Canada. The National Office is
located in Chattanooga, Tennessee. A National Council,
composed of psychologists who are Psi Chi members and are
elected by the chapters, guides the affairs of the
organization and sets policy with the approval of the
chapters.
Psi Chi serves two major goals–one
immediate and visibly rewarding to the individual member, the
other slower and more difficult to accomplish, but offering
greater rewards in the long run. The first of these is the
Society's obligation to provide academic recognition to its
inductees by the mere fact of membership. The second goal is
the obligation of each of the Society's local chapters to
nurture the spark of that accomplishment by offering a climate
congenial to members' creative development. For
example, the chapters make active attempts to nourish and
stimulate professional growth through programs designed to
augment and enhance the regular curriculum and to provide
practical experience and fellowship through affiliation with
the chapter. In addition, the national organization provides
programs to help achieve these goals, including national and
regional conventions held annually in conjunction with the
psychological associations, research award competitions, and
certificate recognition programs.
The Society publishes a
quarterly magazine, Eye on Psi Chi, which helps to
unite the members, inform them, and recognize their
contributions and accomplishments. The quarterly Psi Chi
Journal of Undergraduate Research fosters and rewards the
scholarly efforts of undergraduate psychology students and
provides a valuable learning experience by introducing them to
the publishing and review process.
Students become members by
joining the chapter at the school where they are enrolled. Psi
Chi chapters are operated by student officers and faculty
advisors. Together they select and induct the members and
carry out the goals of the Society. All chapters register
their inductees at the National Office, where membership
records are preserved for reference purposes. The total number
of memberships registered at the National Office is now over
500,000 lifetime members. Many of these members have gone on
to distinguished careers in
psychology.
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