The National Communication Honor Society, Lambda Pi Eta, honored 7 students at an induction ceremony on October 6. The new members of the Phi Gamma chapter of Lambda Pi Eta are juniors Kelli Alfieri, Clare Berenato, Karlee Cleary, Maria Carlini, Kenneth Harris, and Alexandra Kemp-Thompson.
To be accepted into the Lambda Pi Eta honor society, students must complete 60 credit hours with a 3.0 GPA or higher that includes 12 credit hours in the Communications major with a 3.25 GPA or higher. Inductee Harris said, “I was surprised and honored to receive recognition from my peers for the hard work I hardly realized I was doing.”
Harris is looking forward to the advantage of being a member of Lambda Pi Eta. It will give him an edge in the professional world.
“It will expose me to a more refined area of the communications field, as well as open the doors to discovering more career opportunities by being such a helpful résumé addition.”Lambda Pi Eta president Jessica Pierce opened the ceremony and introduced the society’s advisor and assistant professor of communications John Ciak, who had some words of wisdom for the new members.
“I believe that the essence of scholarship is our fundamental search for truth and beauty – seeking truth as the basis for understanding and enjoying beauty in everything we see, hear, taste and touch. To the new members of Lambda Pi Eta, I say strive to be scholars; scholars of humanity and scholars of life itself.”
Frank Klapak, professor of communications and education, discussed communication skills and how they can be applied to a professional world. “[Scholarship] is an attitude that you can do if you put your mind to it. It’s an attitude that you are a scholar, you are a professional, and there is nothing as a communication professional that you cannot do or that you don’t know where to look to find out how to do.
”Director of development Justin Norris spoke to the students about how words and communication can affect their everyday lives. “Words have changed our lives in this day and age. We have a responsibility to use words responsibly because we’ve all seen what using words irresponsibly can do,” said Norris.
Norris shared an inspiring story about how he accidentally led a group of people in a protest to “Make Poverty History” as a student studying abroad in England when he started to sing a random African American spiritual. “It’s been dialogue that has always changed people’s attitudes, their moods, their values and hopefully their actions.”