South Georgia State College (SGSC) walked away with several awards at the Phi Theta Kappa Georgia Region Spring Regional Convention held recently in Atlanta, Ga. Six SGSC students and two advisors, Amy Hancock and Ame Wilkerson, from the Douglas and Waycross Campuses, attended this year’s convention.
Both SGSC chapters were again designated as Five Star Chapters, the highest level a chapter can achieve. The SGSC chapters include Kappa Sigma on the Douglas Campus and Alpha Rho Omega on the Waycross Campus.
Each year, Phi Theta Kappa chapters are required to complete two projects: a College Project to be completed in consultation with the college administration and an Honors in Action project based on an Honors Study topic which Phi Theta Kappa designs to engage honors students in actions that foster student success and leadership.
Alpha Rho Omega garnered an award for its Honors in Action project with the highest score in the region for that particular theme. According to Hancock, “The current topic for the Honors Study program is Frontiers and the Spirit of Exploration. It involves research on a specific theme and then an action project chosen based upon the chapter’s research.”
At the Waycross Campus, Alpha Rho Omega chose Theme 1: Nature of the Quest. After researching information about digital vs. print media and how it affects the nature and scope of obtaining knowledge, the members sponsored a children’s book drive at the Waycross Campus. Over 60 books were collected and given to area organizations to distribute to children. The hashtag #readersareleaders was printed on bookmarks and placed with the donations in order to promote reading literacy to the children. As part of the completion of the project, the chapter members wrote a summary of the event and submitted it into the Hallmark Awards program sponsored by Phi Theta Kappa.
“Both chapters have worked extremely hard to earn the Five Star Chapter rating again. It takes a lot of time and effort by the students to accomplish all the steps needed to reach the goal each year,” Hancock said. “I am especially proud that the Alpha Rho Omega chapter felt this was an important topic to pursue and that they reached out to our students, staff, and community partners to make the project work.”
Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, headquartered in Jackson, Miss., is the largest honor society in higher education with 1,285 chapters on college campuses in all 50 of the United States, Canada, Germany, the Republic of Palau, Peru, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the British Virgin Islands, the United Arab Emirates, and U.S. territorial possessions. More than 3 million students have been inducted since its founding in 1918, with approximately 134,000 students inducted annually.
– Submitted by Amy Hancock, SGSC External Affairs Coordinator