Welcome Back Alpha Kappans!

The word of the day is Teamwork because our honors in action project is all about working together to create an award winning project.

We are well on our way into the Spring 2015 semester and already there is lots to do.

Last semester we voted on our Honors in Action question and this semester we get to try to answer it through our Honors in Action project.

For those of you who may not remember or who are new, our honors in action project is something we do each year. Here's a quick synopsis from ptk.org.

Phi Theta Kappa Honors in Action

The Honors Program fulfills multiple dimensions of Phi Theta Kappa's purpose. It is designed to:

• foster a stimulating environment for intellectual growth and challenge.
• create opportunities for leadership and learning as leaders through service and advocacy.

For the first purpose of our mission — fostering a stimulating intellectual environment — the Honors Program foundation and focus is the Honors Study Topic. The biennial topic is an interdisciplinary, contemporary topic of interest related to global challenges. Members explore the topic with the multitude of perspectives that their personal experiences and academic studies provide.

For the second purpose of our mission — creating opportunities for leadership and action — the Honors Program provides guidance through a process called Honors in Action for taking action based upon new knowledge related to the themes of the Honors Study Topic.

Honors in Action
Honors in Action is the process that provides opportunities to apply learning and practice to real-world problem-solving by developing an in-depth, action-oriented project related to Honors Study Topic research. Academic research into the themes related to the Honors Study Topic is what makes the difference between Honors in Action and simply action. Honors in Action is informed action designed to make a lasting impact and contribute to the betterment of society. Through engaging in Honors in Action, students develop and demonstrate:

• awareness of the importance of seeking out multiple perspectives augment understanding and improve decision-making.
• abilities to draw research conclusions and develop ideas to make a difference.
• effective planning and capabilities to initiate action.
• intentional and purposeful efforts to grow leadership skills.
• understanding of the need to involve others and work together
• capacities to lead and manage self and others to motivate, overcome obstacles, perform in complicated environments and accomplish goals.
• aptitudes for assessing progress, adjusting to circumstances and measuring results quantitatively and qualitatively.

Two meetings ago we gave some presentations on Honors in Action, how to do research, and some hot topics like vaccines and psychiatric medications that relate to our question:

Do we really need medicine or prescription drugs to live a healthier life?

Here is Debbies powerpoint on how to do research.

As of right now our project is moving towards being a debate on vaccines and their relationship to long term health, the risks related to vaccines, as well as the non-vaccination movement and it's effect on the health of our society in general. But we may have to broaden our scope to include prescription pain medications, or psychiatric medications to allow for more rich debate.

Last week the president of the debate team came by, split us into pro and con groups, and had us discuss vaccines.

Tomorrow we will be asking you, especially those of you who got to discuss the topic in groups, what you think of our honors in action question and if we can form a good debate on the subject? If not what should we expand the debate on?

Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow :-)