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Phi Theta Kappa chapter reaches Five Star status
Athens Technical College’s Phi Theta Kappa honor society members earned designation as a Five Star Chapter by the
international organization.
Officials at the Georgia Regional Convention commended the college’s Alpha Tau Zeta chapter for meeting all the
requirements to achieve the status, and the chapter also was recognized at the honor society’s annual convention.
To be named a Five Star Chapter, Athens Technical College’s Alpha Tau Zeta group had to meet five levels of engagement
and activity that progress from local, campus involvement to regional involvement and then on to international involvement. The
honor society provides a Five Star Chapter Development Plan to guide the chapters through the levels while helping them build
strong, active chapters. By following the Five Star plan, chapter members learn about goal setting, deadlines, and organizational
skills, and they develop a strong working relationship with college administrators.
At the lower levels of the Five Star plan, PTK members must register their chapter and maintain a database of current
members. At higher levels (starting with level 3) chapters must plan and implement campus-wide and community-wide projects
that are designed to benefit the college and the community around it.
The Alpha Tau Zeta chapter implemented two such projects. The larger of the two is known as Honors in Action, a twoyear, research-based project designed under the theme Democratization of Information. PTK members adopted a sub-theme that
focused on the arts and their impact on society as well as how information on the arts is transmitted.
“In the first year of the project we organized an arts gala on campus, highlighting musicians, artists, dancers, etc. from the
Athens community and helping to expose our students to the breadth of artistic involvement in our part of the state,” said PTK
chapter advisor Rob Nichols, an Anatomy and Physiology instructor at the college. “For the second year, we held a fundraiser
benefiting the Athens Area Arts Council. The chapter donated five hundred dollars to the AAAC for the various arts education
projects that the council promotes around our city.”
The smaller project, known as a College Project, involved a proposal to encourage citizen awareness in emergencies
(CERT), but chapter members decided early on to pursue a different issue. Nevertheless, their work on the original project was
enough to contribute to the chapter’s Five Star status.
Additionally, the chapter files project reports, called Hallmarks, with PTK headquarters for judging.
The projects also helped the Athens Technical College chapter earn designation as a Top 100 chapter out of 1,300
international chapters, an honor the Alpha Tau Zeta chapter has claimed for at least a dozen consecutive years, Mr. Nichols said.
Besides the Five-Start Chapter designation, the Athens Technical College PTK chapter was recognized regionally as the
state’s Most Distinguished Chapter out of more than 30 chapters throughout the state. This marks the second year in a row and
third time in four years that the Athens Technical College chapter has won the honor. The distinction included a scholarship to
send the chapter president to the University of Denver over the summer to study with hundreds of other PTK members and officers
at the annual Honors Institute.
Photo caption: Tatiana Tejada, left, and Jasmine Yang, members of the Alpha Tau Zeta chapter of international honor society Phi
Kappa Theta, collect litter on the Athens Technical College campus during a Keep America/Athens Beautiful event. The chapter
has adopted the bus stop are and all of Old Hull Road from Athena Drive to Georgia Highway 72 to keep clean.
Don Nelson
706 227-5460
http://www.athenstech.edu/Spotlight.cfm?i=384
7/23/2012
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