NEW HAVEN, Conn. – In recognition of her academic excellence, senior forward
Megan Gorman (Vero Beach, Fla.) of the Yale women's basketball was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa society Monday afternoon in a ceremony at Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. Gorman, Yale's captain, was chosen for the honor in an election earlier this year based on her grades through her first three years at Yale.
Phi Beta Kappa is the oldest academic honor society in the country. Members include 17 U.S.Presidents, 41 Supreme Court Justices and more than 140 Nobel Laureates. Yale's chapter, Alpha of Connecticut, was established in April 1780, four years after the Society was founded. It is the second-oldest chapter in the country.
Gorman was one of 61 Yale undergraduates elected to the society in the second election for the Class of 2020. Students from any undergraduate major at Yale can be elected to Phi Beta Kappa at one of three elections for each class: the beginning of junior year, the beginning of senior year and at Commencement. Normally, election will be based upon the percentage of a student's Yale grades earned in straight A.
Last year at the first election for the Class of 2020 15 students were selected. In the third election, this coming spring, a sufficient number of students will be elected to bring the total membership to no more than 10% of the Senior Class.
Gorman has been one of the leaders for the Yale women's basketball team since her first year, when she appeared in 27 games -- 21 starts. She scored a career-high 21 points at Stanford Dec. 28, 2016. She continued her development as a sophomore, making 31 starts as the Bulldogs set the school record for wins in a season (19) and became the first Ivy League women's basketball team to win a national postseason championship (the WBI).
Last season Gorman started all 29 games, finishing fifth in the Ivy League in rebounding (7.4 per game) and third on the team in assists (50). She earned the team's Karen Yarasavage Bulldog Award, given "to the team member who distinguishes herself by her grit, tenacity and perseverance." This season, she has started eight of nine games and is second on the team in rebounding (5.4 per game).
An Academic All-Ivy League selection last winter, Gorman is an economics major in Trumbull College at Yale. She spent the summer of 2019 interning as an analyst at Barclays Investment Bank in New York City.
