PTK-Opedia

PTK-Opedia—Overview of PTK and general advice.

By Courtney Caldwell


•Going through the 4 Hallmarks and why they are important. Honors in Action – using the hallmarks together. Use leadership workshops to practice outside your comfort zones
• 5 star development program designed to get you involved and explore every facet of the society. When you’re a 5 star chapter help lesser starred chapters.
• Nevada/Ca region – 5 districts (CA = NW, NE, SW, SE) and NV. Know who your VP is and contact them for advice, update them on what you’re doing that’s great and stay in touch, even when things aren’t great.
• Regional Officers – they help organize multi-chapter events, provide support, guidance and information (They want us to contact them) they’re there to enable multi-chapter communications and have special training to assist.
• Regional service projects – regional board creates these (new board = new projects)
• As a chapter, you need to report your projects. Some projects just start out as chapter projects (ie. Bridge to Peace), but spread to the rest of the region.
• On the chapter level: 1) planning your calendar – hallmarks, decide your goals (in community, etc) also find local community calendars, campus calendar, student organization calendar, etc
• Create committees for projects—make someone responsible/accountable for them
• Keep your advisor happy- effective communication is key (keep in mind that PTK is secondary to their teaching). They do a lot of extra work to do stuff w/ PTK. Some advisors are apathetic but if you share your passion with them, you can win them over.
• Infiltrate student government if you can. Maintain effective relationships with student government to overcome issues, participate, etc. you can influence the outlook that they have of PTK
• Induction ceremonies should be classy—formal (you will retain more people and first impressions are important). Show the accomplishment of being part of PTK.
• Gain administrative support to have relationship b/c they control your resource cap on campus. They’ll also share their ties with the community (Rotary, etc) also funding comes from them, so they’ll support you in tough times.
• Charlie Klein can talk to your college president if your advisor or President is inactive or unsupportive. Charlie can put pressure on them – if your advisor is apathetic, talk to them first, maybe see if you can figure out if they are overloaded and take some of those duties off them, or maybe get a co-advisor. Try to improve your relationship before removing an advisor.
• Conventions – lots of them. Check PTK.org. These are here for your training, more depth. Go to workshops for your honors topic. Ptk.org/chapters/resources  chapter resource manual. PTK.org/hallmarks info on the 4 hallmarks, definitions, how to write them, previous winners, etc. Chapter recognition is important so write your hallmarks.
• Ptk.org/fivestar steps to 5 star status – also, report your status on website so we maintain communication of activities.
• Keep projects rolling so that members and chapters stay involved and DOING not just brainstorming.
• Maybe have a project sign up at induction ceremonies so people commit
• Fundraising – depends on each chapter. Some from college budget, some from college pres budget, some just fundraising b/c they don’t get college support, also community sponsorship (Rotary, etc)
• If your foundation keeps track of ptk alumni, their business may sponsor you.