HONORS IN ACTION AT LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE

OCT 9- BMCC hosted the Phi Theta Kappa Regional Leadership Conference over the weekend. The goal of the conference was to educate new members about PTK programs and to foster relationships between NY State chapters.

Regional Secretary Brianna Young hoped to share what she learned about the Honors in Action Program while attending the Honors Institute last summer. The theme of the program is the democratization of information, a topic that challenges students to explore how information is spread during the Twenty-First Century. This subject has been embraced by the members Alpha Gamma Nu from Tompkins Cortland Community College.

“We’re still in the brainstorming stage,” said PTK member Lili Van de Bogart. She and fellow Tompkins student, Deana LeBlanc, were attracted to the Regional Conference in NYC because they hoped to do their Honors Project on the Wall Street protest. Particularly, they wanted to explore how the Internet has attracted supporters and exposed questionable police activity. “When Information can be shared by everyone, then you have power,” added Van de Bogart.

Another PTK member from Tomkins Cortland, Sean Holbert, is interested in doing the Honors project on natural gas mining in his own backyard. “In rural towns it’s more useful to have face to face gatherings for discussion.” Said Holbert. As an environmental studies major, Holbert would like to investigate how energy companies mining the Marcellus Shale are releasing deadly toxins into the environment.

The conference succeeded in bringing the Tompkins Cortland students together with senior PTK members like Brianna Young, who said of the Honors in Action Program, “Democratization of information is how we learn, and as Honor Society members we love to learn.”