About Us
PLU Objectives
The aims and purposes of PLU are the promotion of high scholarship and original investigation in all branches of pure and applied chemistry. The founders envisioned a society dedicated to these objectives which would serve the field of chemistry in much the same manner as Phi Beta Kappa does the humanities; Sigma Xi, scientific research; and Tau Beta Pi, engineering. Throughout its history, PLU has been consistently devoted to its objectives as an Honor Society. Click here for more information about the national organization.
History
PLU was founded as an honorary chemical society--the first honor society dedicated to a single scientific discipline--in 1899 at the University of Illinois. Seven years later, a second chapter was established at the University of Wisconsin. From 1906 to 1911, five more chapters were chartered, after which the national society was organized on June 29, 1911 at a convention in Indianapolis. In the span of one hundred and eight years, PLU has grown into an organization comprising 67 chapters and more than 55,000 members, including the Alpha Gamma chapter that was founded at Northwestern University in 1927.
Membership
Members are elected on the basis of their academic achievement and promise. Membership includes exceptional students of pure and applied chemistry selected from the junior, senior, or graduate classes, and also from well qualified members of faculties, staffs, as well as from selected post-doctoral students engaged in chemical endeavors in affiliation with qualified institutions of higher learning.
Membership to the Alpha Gamma chapter at Northwestern is available to all chemistry graduate students and graduate students working for a chemistry professor who have been formally admitted into the doctoral program. Members should subscribe to the PLU-MEMBERS listserv.
The aims and purposes of PLU are the promotion of high scholarship and original investigation in all branches of pure and applied chemistry. The founders envisioned a society dedicated to these objectives which would serve the field of chemistry in much the same manner as Phi Beta Kappa does the humanities; Sigma Xi, scientific research; and Tau Beta Pi, engineering. Throughout its history, PLU has been consistently devoted to its objectives as an Honor Society. Click here for more information about the national organization.
History
PLU was founded as an honorary chemical society--the first honor society dedicated to a single scientific discipline--in 1899 at the University of Illinois. Seven years later, a second chapter was established at the University of Wisconsin. From 1906 to 1911, five more chapters were chartered, after which the national society was organized on June 29, 1911 at a convention in Indianapolis. In the span of one hundred and eight years, PLU has grown into an organization comprising 67 chapters and more than 55,000 members, including the Alpha Gamma chapter that was founded at Northwestern University in 1927.
Membership
Members are elected on the basis of their academic achievement and promise. Membership includes exceptional students of pure and applied chemistry selected from the junior, senior, or graduate classes, and also from well qualified members of faculties, staffs, as well as from selected post-doctoral students engaged in chemical endeavors in affiliation with qualified institutions of higher learning.
Membership to the Alpha Gamma chapter at Northwestern is available to all chemistry graduate students and graduate students working for a chemistry professor who have been formally admitted into the doctoral program. Members should subscribe to the PLU-MEMBERS listserv.