Membership in Alpha Kappa Mu National Scholastic Honor Society (Mu Mu Chapter) indicates you have accepted the challenge to rise above mediocrity and have joined a community of scholars. You are among the precious few human beings upon whom the world must depend for the vision, the insight, and the direction to lead men and women in their quest for fuller self-realization. When translated into its broadest terms, Alpha Kappa Mu National Scholastic Honor Society wants to impress upon you that all correct action derives from sound knowledge, and the gift of knowledge is among the most precious gifts an individual can possess. Knowledge without wisdom, however, is empty and should, therefore, always be avoided.

The Mu Mu Chapter of Alpha Kappa Mu was installed at Kent State University on April 21, 1982, making this University the first predominantly white university to he awarded a chapter. Cleveland State and Ohio State followed soon thereafter. Nominations for undergraduate and graduate membership in Alpha Kappa Mu are made annually during spring semester. The Induction Ceremony is usually held on Wednesday during Honors Week. Honorary membership is open to the department's faculty and staff, and to other African American faculty and staff on the campus. Nominations for honorary induction into the society are also made during spring semester. 

Inductees into Alpha Kappa Mu (Mu Mu Chapter) must fulfill the following requirements: 

Eligibility for active membership is based upon junior or senior class standing with a minimum of 64 semester hours (or 50 percent of the hours needed for graduation) and a cumulative GPA of at least 3.30. Transfer students shall be in residence for at least two semesters and shall have earned 32 semester hours at Kent State University toward a degree. However, the GPA shall be computed for the entire college career to date. Moreover, graduate students seeking membership in the society must have been enrolled at Kent for two semesters and have earned a GPA of 3.70 or better. 

Realizing the need for more recognition of the African American scholars and stimulation of greater efforts toward scholastic excellence among African American students, Dr. George Gore, Jr., then Dean of the Tennessee A & I State College, conceived the idea that was later to materialize into Alpha Kappa Mu as a National Honor Society.

Hosted by Phi Beta Tau Honorary Scholarship Society of Tennessee A & I State College, representatives from sly colleges which had existing local honor societies, met in November 1937 and formed what was named at this initial meeting "The Federation of Scholastic Honor Societies." The first meeting dealt with honor societies in various fields and areas, and members frown outstanding honor societies were invited to address the group. The second annual meeting was held at North Carolina A & T College in Greensboro in November 1937. Ten additional colleges were represented and definite plans were laid to bring forth a National Organization.

In December 1939, the third annual convention was held at Arkansas AM&N State College in Pine Bluff. At this historic meeting the principles around which the constitution would be built were laid down; the name was changed to "Alpha Kappa Mu Honor Society," and a feeling of esprit de corps and solidarity crystallized that assured its continued existence as a national organization. By the end of the third year, the purpose as a National Honor Society had been definitely established and the organizational machinery for achieving these purposes had become a functional reality.

Since its conception in 1937, Alpha Kappa Mu has grown in size, and in scope, and in its influence upon the academic excellence of American college end university students. There are at present seventy-one active chapters and six alumni chapters distributed among eight regions. The Honor Society was admitted to membership in the Association of College Honor Societies (ACHS) in 1952, and its council representative has attended each annual meeting since. The late Dr. George W. Gore, Jr., was its president from 1961-1963. While its chapters have been located primarily in schools predominantly attended by African Americans, it is an equal opportunity organization and recently chapters have been established on the campuses of predominantly white colleges and universities. Kent State University was the first such chapter. Chapters were established subsequently at Cleveland State and Ohio State Universities.

Alpha Kappa Mu National Scholastic Honor Society

Alumni and Honorary Members

Dr. Edward W. Crosby, Co-Advisor**
Dr. Francis E. Dorsey, Co-Advisor*
Dr. Alene Barnes-Harden**
Dr. Leonne Hudson*
Dr. Meli L.N. Temu**
Mr. Garfield T. Warren*

*Denotes Alumni of other Alpha Kappa Mu Chapters 
**Denotes Honorary Members of the KSU Mu Mu Chapter

The Full Roster of Mu Mu Chapter Membership
 before April 20, 1994

The Edward W. Crosby and Wiley Smith III
Leadership Award Recipients
Spring 1994

Kenneth Clemmons
Tiffiney L. Way
Andrea L. Duvall

The Shirley R. Crosby  Service Award Recipients as of Spring 1994

Toya Alexander Sharon Semple Lisa Wheeler Leeta Bryant Robert Brown Maurita Harris Kendra Roland                      Delicia Slay Cheree Davis Jay Ross Nishell Preston Nichole Allen Stas Ky Bey Stephanie Tate

Keita Sa'ad Darvis Harris Heather Refit Kenyatta Mitcham Yolonda Torrence Antonio Mitchell Janet Carter  Tanesha Woodall Lillian Prince Junior Pettijohn Naomi Williams Mary Johnson Mandel Jones

The W. E.B. DuBois  Award for Service

The Mary McLeod Bethune Award for Scholarship

The Chief Fela Sowande Award for Creativity

The Hulda Smith-Graham Freshman Award

Recipients of the DuBois and Sowande Awards must have a GPA of 2.50 or above; no particular class standing is required. Students receiving either the Bethune or Smith-Graham Awards, however, must have earned a GPA of 3.00 or better. The Bethune Award also requires the recipients to be juniors or seniors. The DuBois, Sowande, and Bethune Awards are presented during the University's annual Honors Week activities in April.

Hulda Harriet Smith-Graham, daughter of Valvernita Smith, now deceased, was born October 27, 1949,in Tortola, British Virgin Isles. Hulda moved to Kent in 1969to enter Kent State University to complete her undergraduate studies. She had just earlier received her Associate of Arts Degree from the College of the Virgin Isles.

Hulda always realized the supreme value of education and she pursued it with greet vigor and relentlessly. In 1972, she completed her Bachelor of Arts Degree in English. This was not enough. She soon began to work toward a Masters Degree, which she received in 1973 from Kent.

In 1974,two events occurred that indelibly imprinted her in the minds of African American students. She became a full-time faculty member in the Department of Pan-African Studies and at the same time began preparing herself to become a candidate for the PhD Degree in English Literature. This period of time was essential to the development of this Department and the intellectual development of our student body. Hulda persisted in letting her students as well as those of other colleagues know that they had great God-given talents, they had only to let the faculty help them unlock these intellectual talents. She reminded them of the words of another Virgin Islander, the great linguist, Pan-Africanist, and scholar Edward Wilmot Blyden who wrote more than 120 years ago that:

". . . book learning is not the most essential part of our educational needs as a people. You do not educate a man when you
merely fill his mind; but you do educate him when you make him feel what he ought to feel; the one is mental, the other
affectional. The one teaches him to lean upon others, the other teaches him to 'retire upon himself.' . . . And this view  . . .
of their education becomes more important when we look upon the work which a large portion of them are destined to do
they will not be able to succeed as mere imitators of the European."

Throughout her career at Kent State University and the Department of Pan-African Studies, Hulda Smith-Graham made the essence of Blyden's words her living legacy to those students, African, African American, Caribbean, and European, who would pass through the doors of the Center of Pan-African Culture to learn to be independent and intellectually self-reliant.

It is for these reasons and undoubtedly a host of others that we present these academic awards in her name. We memorialize Hulda Smith-Graham as an educational inspiration to first- and second-year undergraduates who have decided to grapple with the vicissitudes of snatching a real education out of the muddle of life, and who have also shown the stamina needed to struggle and to overcome.