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Phi Theta Clark Analysis

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Houston Community College’s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa is now ranked as the seventh most distinguished chapter in the world.

“All the work that we did paid off, and that feeling was incredible,” said Angie Chacko, the group’s public relations officer. She said that winning the Hallmark awards, “was more rewarding than anything.”

Phi Theta Kappa is an international honor society for two-year college students. HCC's Omega Sigma chapter won four Hallmark Awards: Distinguished Honors in Action Theme; Distinguished Honors in Action Project; Distinguished Chapter; and Distinguished Chapter Sixth Place Finalist.

"It was not one particular thing that got us there, but the combination of the efforts from everything,” said Ivan Lopez, the President …show more content…

“These topics we’re researching are legitimate problems that are going on in the world. If we could do something about it, that would be awesome, and Phi Theta Kappa that promotes that and gives you the opportunity to see something that’s going on in the world and do something about it,” said Chacko.

For their research project, "We brought awareness to the about the excessive use of internet use through our cell phones and social media apps,” explained Lopez, “excessive use that is non-productive, that has nothing to do with homework.”
“Social media is something that we could realistically attack because we are a part of it and we notice that. We notice it in the schools. We notice it in our classes. We notice that people, instead of interacting with one another, as soon as you walk into the classroom, you sit down and don’t even say ‘Hi’ to each other sometimes,” said Chacko, “We wanted to find out why that was, and we wanted to find out if we could find a way to bring that social interaction back.”

While researching the topic, Omega Sigma Webmaster Maria Wiratman discovered that elsewhere in the world, excessive social media use is sometimes classified as an addiction. That lead the group to look at the issue from a health perspective instead of a social …show more content…

We don’t record videos of them,” explained Alexandre Soares, Omega Sigma’s Vice President of Leadership. “We were judged based on those texts that we submitted.” Phi Theta Kappa headquarters hires an independent committee to evaluate and score project submission essays.

"I firmly believe that we had a strong college project," stated Lopez. However, Omega Sigma did not win Distinguished College Project at the international level.

The chapter that was named the 2016 Most Distinguished Chapter internationally, the Alpha Rho Mu Chapter of Lone Star College–Tomball, also did not win a distinction for their College Project. Points from both projects are added up for to determine the distinguished chapter rankings.

At the state level, Omega Sigma won Awards of Merit for both their research and service projects, as well as Chapter of Merit.

Two Omega Sigma members were also named to the Texas Region Hall of Honor this spring: Angie Chacko and Alyssa Foley. Maria Wiratman was also given an Honorable Mention. For this individual award, members were nominated by their chapter and the regional office examines all the candidates from across the state and selects who will be named to the Hall of

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