Tri-Beta National Biological Honors Society
About
The Tri-Beta national biological honors society was founded in 1922 at Oklahoma State University, and since then has grown to include 533 chapters, and over 200,000 members within the United States and Puerto Rico. An honors fraternity based on scholarship and academic inquiry, Tri-Beta has been one of the nation’s foremost societies for students studying the biological and life sciences.
Villanova’s service-oriented community is a testament to the universities mission statement, as well as the students who attend this university. Although our students involvement in volunteerism is commendable, our fraternity is aimed towards filling a gap between academic scholarship, inquiry, and service we find a need for within Villanova’s scientific community. Our mission is two fold: to increase involvement in scientific and scholarly research amongst students, and to provide the opportunity for the growth and melding of a community within the life sciences.
The opportunity to perform scientific research is one not every university offers their undergraduate students. Villanova’s commitment to serving as a teaching university provides the opportunity for students to become involved in a unique research experience, one where the undergraduate is able to formulate and carry-out their own experiments. However, it has come to our attention that this is often overlooked, or misunderstood. A major facet of our honors fraternity is to connect students to researchers on campus, and increase scientific involvement. Through our tentative program we have called, Research Connect, we aim to expose young students to research through presentations by principle investigators, laboratory tours, and holding research expos. The experience of older students will aid younger students in writing proposals for grants, and interpreting scientific research. As a nationally recognized honors fraternity, Tri-Beta also offers their own research grants and scholarships to students.
The scientific community is competitive in nature, with students fixated on graduate programs and academics. One of our missions, is to aid in transforming this competitive nature to a co-operative one, in which all students have the opportunity to thrive. In order to attain this goal, we have proposed mentoring programs to help younger students; tutoring services for upper level biology courses within the fraternity; group study sessions; and volunteering events which will connect students within the sciences. By creating an environment where students are able to help and learn from one another, we believe that this will have a great impact on a classes ability to succeed as a whole. Further, we believe that in time our honors fraternity will create an alumni base which students may connect to for career opportunities.