Second Garfield Presentation: Teaching Garfield to Live Green

On December 3rd, 2008, Alex, Astrid, and Rene Rivera gave the second presentation at Garfield Middle School(Youth Adelante. They first talked to the students about the problem we are getting into if we do not protect our environment. They also talked to the students about the solutions that there are to solve this big problem like recycling, planting trees, not throwing garbage on streets, etc. Furthermore, the children interacted with the presenters by asking questions and participating in activities. The presenters had the students build snow globes by using jam jars and other supplies. Although the presenters had some technical difficulties with the power point presentation, they were able to pull through and everything worked out just fine. The students were impressed because Alex graduated from that school.

For more information on our projects with Garfield check out our blog entry titled First Garfield Presentation: Science Behind Magic.

Redwood City Symphony

On Sunday November 23rd, two member of our chapter, Isaiah Roggow and Marie Roussel, volunteered for the Redwood City Symphony. The volunteers helped to sell cookies and coffee during the event. Funds will be donated to the symphony.

Isaiah shares with the blog his insights and highlights of the event:

I always enjoy going to the Redwood Symphony, it really is and always has been a well organized and competently ran event. Their themes are always well-thought out and consistent. The musicians are top shelf and could easily be found at any of the 'big-super-prestigious" orchestras in the nation in which I have been in the audience.
This time around, Redwood Symphony honored several renowned Jewish composers at the Beth Am synagogue in Los Altos Hills. The first of two highlights for me was the playing of the suite for the movie "The Hours." The second was accompanied choral singing of traditional psalms that have been passed down by the Jewish people for uncounted generations. It was a truly delightful event; the Redwood Symphony continued to bring high quality orchestral music to the Bay Area once again. Bravo!

Globalization Debate

This event was done with the Business Club after the President of the Business Club came to our chapter with the idea of the debate. The two Canada Clubs decided that we would have two professors, Terzakis and Roscelli, in the debate. The main idea was to educate students on the pro's and con's of globalization and trade while explaining the effect trade can have on the countries involved. The event proved to be an extremely popular debate to attend. We had over 100 students and faculty members attend with standing room only shortly after the debate began. After the professors presented their views the room was open to questions and the numbers of students with questions was much greater than we thought. Thanks to the great involvement of the classroom the debate ended up lasting much longer than expected, but was well worth the time. This event was able to help the chapter reach out to Canada students and teach them about our scholarship topic.

Darwin, God or both?

On November 13th 2008, an English professor, Mark Harrison, gave a lecture on Evolution and Intelligent Design to our chapter. He explained the foundations of both, Evolution theory and Intelligent Design hypothesis. The chapter, along with other members of the community, enjoyed a well prepared lecture explaining why Evolution is a viable scientific theory and how Intelligent Design is an attempt to incorporate religion into the education system.

"Frankie Meets Jimmy" - A Benefit Concert For Student Scholarships

Members of our Chapter volunteered to help out at the Jimmy meets Frankie music event hosted by Canada's president,Tom Mohr, for the college’s donors. The event was done in hopes of raising money to help pay for scholarships for Canada's college. Marie, Isaiah, Jonathan, Ryan, and Loveline acted as ushers to provide a warm welcome for the President’s guests. The volunteers also helped set up the intermission refreshments and coffee. This was an opportunity for the college’s donors to see the very students that their donations benefit.

Fall 2008 Induction Ceremony

The evening of enchantment that we know as PTK induction began by a welcome from Skyline’s president, which was then followed with a word of by the Regional president. The excitement coursing through the room was tangible at that point. The secrecy maintained by previously inducted members about the ceremony only heightened the anticipation in our hearts and souls. Our satisfaction would not be met just then, for the keynote speaker was about to take the stage in grand fashion. The speaker was none other than Tyler Hammer, Executive Director of Sustainable San Mateo County. A finer speech about sustainability in connection with academic achievement has never before been crafted. After in-depth definitions and explanations of the word ‘sustainability,’ the speech concluded. The new inductees were initiated into our organization that we love so dearly, Phi Theta Kappa. After the ceremony was complete, the emotionally exhausted new members swore the oath of PTK. We then were released to the foyer for punch and pie!

Christmas Cards Donation

Our chapter will be donating 500 Christmas cards to a fellow California/Nevada Region chapter, Alpha Omega Rho. Alpha Omega Rho will be using the cards for their current project to supply all the wounded troops at Balboa Naval Medical Hospital in San Diego with a Christmas card and the extras will be shipped overseas. Beta Zeta Nu was glad to lend a helping hand and hope to be able to help out other chapters. Clyde Campbell Alpha Omega Rho's Vice President of Service was our person of contact and will be receiving our cards. This project is a Chapters United Project.

Canada College Honors Program

Canada College is about to start a brand new Honors Program. Patty Dilko, Honors Program coordinator at Canada College, gave an interview for our blog.
Wednesday morning Patty meets with Sofia in her office ready to talk about this program and its benefits.

"The idea of the Honors Program, came from different places" Patty explains, "On one hand, highly motivated students were eager to engage in more challenging courses and faculty felt the need to work with these students to fill up some academic and intellectual gaps. On the other hand, counselors were realizing that the Honors Programs would double Canada's articulation agreements with four year institutions."

This program offers highly motivated students the opportunity to do research and prepare for the upper division classes. It will also allow students to have intensive academic experiences.

"This Honors Program validates the college commitment to help their students to successfully transfer" says Patty.

At the beginning the program will be as simple as possible, but it is very likely that it would grow and evolve with time.

Any student who meets the prerequisites can register and participate in the honors experience. The classes offered through this program are not shown in the schedule, but are listed in WebSMART and students can enroll in them immediately.


For more information visit http://canadacollege.edu/honorsprogram/


You can also contact Patty Dilko at dilko@smccd.edu

First Garfiled Presentation: Science Behind Magic.

On October 26, a group of Phi Theta Kappa students and SHPE (Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers) helped develop a presentation for some Garfield students.This great presentation was held for Garfield Middle School and The Youth Adelante program. During the presentation Edgar De Loa, Matthew Palomar, Violeta Crow, Aldo and Rene Rivera introduced themselves and at the end of each introduction had a positive message for the children. After introductions, Edgar performed some magic tricks. His tricks including card tricks and an explanation of the science behind what he was doing. The children were very curious about this performance and participated in it. They were enjoying it so much that they did want Edgar to stop the tricks.

Our involvement in this project, allowed us to be role models for children that maybe in a bad environment or neighborhood, like gangs or drugs. We were given an opportunity to make a difference in their lives by exciting them with science and college. We may not be able to change the world, but we understand that if we can make a change in the world, that’s a plus.

Redwood Symphony Concert

The Redwood City Symphony offered a Halloween Concert. Four members of our chapter and an alumni volunteered for this event. The chapter members helped with the organization of the event and with the sale of snacks that will help the Symphony pay for the expenses of the concert.

Bridge2Peace Art Supplies Donation

Thursday, October 23rd an Advisor, Loretta Farris, and Vice President of Fellowship, Ryan Calic, picked up some art supplies. The chapter will donate the art supplies for the Bridge2Peace project. The art supplies are scheduled to be received by Irvine Community College Advisor, Kurt Meyer. Bridge2Peace will send all supplies to a school in Lunugamvehera, Sri Lanka. This project meets both Chapters United and Make A Difference Day Regional Projects criteria.

Garfield Update

After the chapter decided to go ahead and say no our VPs of Service notified Claudia. She sent the VPs an e-mail replying that she had already told the children. The children were already excited about the presentations. Since she didn’t want to disappoint the children she said that she would be willing to work with us on the amount of presentations, topics, as well as, time. Soon after Rene,our Co-VP received the email he reported back to the chapter’s presidents and advisors. It was then decided to present a total amount of four presentations with our choice of topics. The chapter would also present a presentation to the kids about once every two months. The first presentation will be Science behind magic. The second presentation will teach Garfield how to Live Green and the last two presentations are still to be planned.

Regional List Serve Ettiquette

In order to remind people of the reason for the PTK List Serve, our Vice President of Fellowship, Ryan Calic, sent an e-mail to end the much too long argument a few people were having through the whole list serve. Ryan kindly reminded people, "It has always been my understanding the list serv was designed purely for sharing information about chapter, regional projects, and or networking purposes. In the past we had some 'spam' and partison positions taken that led the region to create a myspace as well as a yahoo group where more lively discussions of that nature could take place." Ryan was able to respectfully express his opinions of his anger of the people's unnecessary list serve e-mails. "While, I may regard the list serve as strictly business, it is not my place to impose that as a value judgment on anyone. I leave that up to the regional authorities to assess what conforms or not to list serve nettiquette." In order to be even more helpful Ryan suggested some advice and reading materials for the people involved. "Anyone interested in being more objective at recognizing when they are unintentionally placing value judgments or being reactionary to other values, might consider reading 'Existentialism & Human Emotion' by Jean Paul Satre. It was recommended to me by a regional alumni, which I found very helpful in these kind of situations." The chapter was glad to see how one of their members step up in to stop things and do so in a very polite and respectful way.

Breast Cancer Walk

Beta Zeta Nu did an exceptional job this year of fund raising for the American Cancer Societyʼs annual Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk. A team member web page was formed on the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer website so that other members of our chapter could join and solicit donations to friends and family. Our team began raising money at the end of August and continued to solicit donations past the event date, October 18, 2008. Overall we had 14 members join our online team who altogether raised a total of $1,465, almost $500 above our anticipated goal of $1000! On Saturday October 18, we had five Beta Zeta Nu members and four friends and family members volunteer to walk five miles through Golden Gate Park for the actual breast cancer walk. Kudos to everyone who spent the time fund raising for this event and those who volunteered to walk with us on this chilly Saturday morning!

Redwood City's Project Read Trivia Bee

The Project Read Trivia Bee has been going on for nineteen years and is a trivia contest that involves around thirty teams of three. The Bee consists of three separate rounds, first round with all the team, second with the best ten and the last round with the final two teams. Trivia Bee is a fundraiser for Project Read, which is a literacy program that helps to teach people to read. Project Read is setting a goal to have 100% literacy by the year 2020. In order to help the cause, the Chapter formed a team of three people. The team was composed of two members and an Advisor: VP of Fellowship Ryan Calic, VP of Fundraising Jonathan Werden, and Advisor Anthony Swanson. The team sadly did not made it past round one but put up a good fight by receiving 21 points.

Nevada/California Regional Leadership Conference 2008

Beta Zeta Nu chapter left on Friday, October 11th with Ryan, Kayla, Yvette, Jeremy, and an Advisor, Paul Roscelli for Las Vegas. They were going to attend the regional leadership conference. Regional staff members such as Christopher Hagermann, Crist Antolin, Shane Mason, Helen Hagler, & Elizabeth Lewandowski were all in attendance. The new Regional Coordinator, Charlie Klein and his predecessor, Judy Ryan, who recently announced retirement. During the conference chapters went up to a podium to announce their respective projects to their fellow regional chapters. It was during this time that Ryan was able to talk about our work with Kiva. The conference was a lot of fun for everyone. For Jeremy, Kayla, & Ryan it was both new and old in terms of the novelty of the conference and type events going on. For Yvette, it was an entirely new experience since she’d never been to a PTK conference before. Everyone was really relaxed the whole time. The members that attend to utilize their knowledge and experiences gained at the Regional Leadership Conference in order to better arm themselves with knowledge. This will hopefully fulfill our chapter's roles as Phi Theta Kappa’s aspiring leaders of tomorrow.

Kiva Update

Bifotima Kimsanova, the entrepreneur the chapter funded started paying back on October 2008. From the $375 dollars lent, she has returned $62.62 (16.70% of the total loan) She will keep repaying in the course of the next 4 months.

As requested by the chapter, we entered a comment on the KIVA website requesting information and pictures of any improvement on Bifotima's business.
To see the comment go to

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=comment&id=58950&ent=71671


We are also proud to announce that we have funded two new entrepreneurs:

One is Karomat Umarkulova from Tajikistan. We lent her $75 dollars that will be repaid in three months
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=68468

The second is Bahodir Toshmatov from Tajikistan. We lent him $225 dollars that will be repaid in 4 months
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=68462

Once the money has been repaid the chapter will have to evaluate results and take a decision in terms of re-using the money to keep funding entrepreneurs or use the resources for something else.

Voter Registration Drive

This event occurred on October 2 and 3, 2008. The drive was done in hopes of registering voters for this very important upcoming election. We had a table outside with the appropriate paperwork to register people and give them a little more information on the propositions and party affiliations. We received all the voter registration forms from the library. In order to get as many people registered as possible we hung flyers around campus and letters in the teachers' boxes to get them to motivate their students to register. This was a service event because we were serving our fellow students. It was also a leadership event because we constructed the event. The event was also scholarly because we educated the students on the importance of their votes and the propositions. This event taught our chapter to be proactive and take initiative to instruct fellow students on the importance of voting. We hope that by registering students we will hopefully make a difference in the election and to make the voices of students' heard.

Garfield

Rene, a Co-VP of service, made an appointment with a prospective elementary school to pitch the chapter's ideas about an educational presentation and possible projects. Our VPs of service, Astrid and Rene, attended a meeting at a Charter Elementary School named Garfield located in Redwood City with another active member, Alex. They met with Claudia the Program coordinator for Garfield’s after school program,called Youth Adelante. Youth Adelante is sponsored by Chicana Latina Foundation and is the after school program for 7th and 8th graders. The group pitched their ideas concerning pennies for peace, educational presentations, and a possible volunteer raffle contest for PTK members. Claudia accepted the chapter's ideas, but were warned that a volunteer raffle contest would not be possible because the organization did not want strangers coming and going from the school. In addition, Claudia told the group that they had to choose between a one-time presentation or 8 presentations to be spread out through the school year. Aside from these presentations, the volunteers who decided to present would need to have get a background check, apply as a volunteer, and commit to presenting on Wednesdays only. The group was also told that after the first presentation the children would choose the topic for the remaining presentations. Feeling overwhelmed with the commitments, the group graciously thanked Claudia for her time and told her that they would need talk to the chapter before any decisions could be made. The next meeting, the group talked to the chapter and laid out the conditions Claudia presented to them. The chapter found the amount of commitments frustrating and agreed that it was too much of a commitment and that we should terminate the deal with Garfield. A Co-VP of service, Rene, decided to e-mail Claudia apologizing for the termination of the deal and further explaining that her conditions, schedule, and rules would not work for the chapter. Not long after the email Claudia responded asking the chapter to reconsider since the children of Garfield were excited about the presentations. The chapter was then able to find a compromise on the number of presentations and requirements for the presentations. The benefits of this project would be to reach out and educate young children about the environment, prospective careers, and hands on activities relating to engineering. The chapter is hoping to introduce and open up important subjects that are not readily available to the the children's daily lives.

Honors Classes

A few members of the chapter, including an advisor, took part in many meetings in Fall 2008 to help get honor classes at Canada. PTK students gave feedback and a perspective of the college students. They helped the committee to make things easier and told of some troubles that students might run into and how they could get around it. Thanks to these meetings we can look forward to honors classes at Canada this coming Spring.

Business Etiquette: Putting Your Best Foot Forward

This event took place on Thursday, September 25, 2008. We brought in Ms. Sharyn Kennedy Amoroso who is well known throughout the San Francisco Bay Area as a leading consultant in etiquette and social protocol. Since 1993 she has presented a series of programs tailored for children, teenagers, college students, and business professionals. It was an event to help students succeed in their social and business lives. The event gave students an idea of behavior is and isn't acceptable along with what language is appropriate in different environments. In order to get as many participants as we could, we advertised with flyers through e-mail, around the campus, and with the help of other clubs on campus, like MESA. We also had the help of our student government, ASCC, to make the event possible. The library also assisted us by making a display of etiquette and gave us a list of books available in our library that can help students learn even more about etiquette. After the event, we asked participants to fill out a survey to gain feedback on how the event went for the students personally and to see if it was as helpful as we hoped it would be. The project was done to hopefully help students have a better understanding of what etiquette means and help them succeed in different environments.

Extreme Makeover: College Edition

Be the Change Day is an event that takes place annually and is organized by Hands On, a Bay Area organization. There were 21 projects all around the Bay Area at locations like parks, homeless shelters, and schools on this day. PTK choose to volunteer on the project site Transform First Step for Families on this day. Our group helped paint apartments, move furniture, and painted outdoor sheds in a shelter that provides housing to families that are trying to transition to permanent housing. Because of our volunteering this day two families were able to move in that weekend. We also saved the shelter network $7500 and 25 gallons of paint. We were able to give back to our community while doing this project and helped families in need. By beatifying the First Step for Families’ shelter, families would feel more like they are living in a home not just a shelter.

Kiva Project

The project was introduced by our adviser Paul Roscelli. After his suggestion we watched a video that explained how Kiva works.



Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

After doing a little more research the chapter decided to lend $700 dollars to two entrepreneurs.


So far we have lent $350 dollars to Bifotima Kimsanova in Tajikistan.
For more information about Bifotima and view her profile you can go to
http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=58950

Bifotima will take 6 months to pay us back, during those six months we will be able to see updates about her and her business in Kiva's website!
The remaining $350 dollars will be lent to another entrepreneur.

Recruiting of Under Represented Students

In collaboration with our college's CEBT program, a program design to get first generation non English speakers into school, our members worked a Saturday afternoon in May in the community . The chapter talked to the group of potential honor students.

Save the Bay

August 16th, 2008 Astrid, Rene and Isaiah volunteered to help weed and restore the bay at San Frascisquito Creek. They learned that by removing non-native plants, native plants could grow and other native plants can be planted. Three main reasons why weeding and restoring the bay is important are to prevent flooding, help restore wildlife habitat and help filter the water before it reaches the bay. The cleaning of non-native plants also creates a better habitat for endangered species in the marsh, like the salt marsh mouse. First, they went to a nursery and planted some native plants and learned that after those tiny plants grow, they were going to be planted in that area. They planted around 700 tiny native plants of all kinds. After that they proceeded to another part of the marsh to start weeding. They collected a lot of bags full of non-native plants, which were going to be given to the Rangers of the park. Sometimes the weeds are made into fertilizer for plants. This was the second time that PTK participated in one of these events with save the bay. On June 28th 2008, Denise and Rene participated in the event for the first time. However, the first time they participated they did not get to go to the nursery. They only helped get rid of non-native plants and collected 45 bags full of non-native and invasive species. The clean up helps protect native species, and keeps wetlands restored. We were not only able to help in our community but also in creating a better environment for all by participating in this event.

Save the Bay Research

In order to made our Save the Bay Project a scholarly event, Kayla, our Vice President of Scholarship, did research on animals common to the area we would volunteering at. She discovered that there were two native species in danger of extinction and lived only in these marsh lands. The two animals were the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse and the California Clapper Rail.

Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse:
• Tiny, nocturnal rodent that lives in San Francisco Bay wetlands and only along the bay
• Among the smallest rodents in the US
• Bodies are less than three inches long and weigh less than a nickel
• Tails can be as long or longer than their bodies and they have grooved teeth
• Eat seeds, grasses, pickle weed and insects
• Bodies specially adapted to tolerate high concentrations of salt in food and water
• Known to drink and survive on salt water for long periods of time
• Live in dense pickle weed for hiding from natural predators like the California Clapper Rail
• Very good swimmers and climbers, but can live as long as a year
• Don’t reproduce quickly
• Most females bear only four young in a litter and have only one litter in their lifetime.

California Clapper Rail:
• A shy and elusive bird
• Endangered species native to San Francisco Bay
• Males and females look almost identical and are 1 to 1.5 feet long
• Once lived in coastal marshes throughout central and northern California but now are only found along the San Francisco bay
• Live in salt water and brackish marshes and tidal sloughs
• Prefer a habitat of card grass and pickle weed
• Use bright orange beak to obtain in their favorite foods, including worms, mussels, fish and crabs from the mud during low tides during long tides
• Known to munch on an occasional small bird or mammal like the Salt Marsh Harvest Mouse.
• Compared to Chickens in size, shape and maneuverability
• Often seen at very high or low tides
• Rely on wetlands for protection and isolation from predators
• Lay their eggs on the ground in a shallow nest of dead marsh grasses

Summer Planning Session

This was the last summer planning session that was used to set the day and time of our weekly meetings and finalize what we were doing in the fall semester. We left the session excited for the start of the semester and a good foundation of what we wanted to do in the semester. The summer planning sessions allowed the officers to come together and make decisions for the upcoming semester.

Leadership Summer Planning Session

This summer planning session was dedicated to leadership. We spent the session learning more about what leadership is and how to better incorporate it with all the events we put on. This session was run by our Vice President of Leadership, Victoria. It was a great session that only taught us more about Leadership, but helped bring all the officers closer.

Blog

Chapter discussed and decided to use available blogging technology and combine it with the role of chapter Historian to create a more powerful way to communicate with chapter members as well as chronicling the chapter events around the four hallmarks.

Researching of the Honors Topic: The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges and Consequences

After distribution of the Honors Program Guide and much discussion, our chapter felt the place to start the conversation about the honors topic was with Issue 1, Definitions. After examining that section in the Honors Program Guide it was decided that several of the students would read and journal notes on a book entitled, Gross Domestic Happiness, by C. Arthur Brooks. In this book the author argues that the evidence shows a real "happiness gap" in America today, and it lies disconcertingly close to America's cultural and political fault lines. The great divide between the happy and the unhappy in America, Brooks shows, is due, in great part, to differences in social and cultural values. The values that bring happiness are faith, charity, hard work, optimism, and individual liberty. Secularism, excessive reliance on the state to solve problems, and an addiction to security promote unhappiness. What can be done to maximize America's happiness? Supplied with the unconventional wisdom Brooks has come to be known for, Gross National Happiness offers surprising ideas about how our government can best facilitate Americans in their pursuit of happiness. This occurred during a summer planning session not too long after Kayla’s return from the international honors seminar.

International Honors Seminars

International Honors Seminar is when members of Phi Theta Kappa get together for a week to learn more about the honors hallmark topic. This year’s topic is The Paradox of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences. The seminar took place at San Francisco State University. We had our Vice President of Scholarship and Communications, Kayla, attend. She met people from all over the nation and gained a deeper understanding of the honors topic. It was a great week that was not only scholarly but also helped make better leaders.

Service Summer Planning Session

In order to be more successful in planning events, we decided to break each summer planning session down to each hallmark. The first session was dedicated to service. The Co-Vice Presidents of Service researched many events we could do that dealt with the service theme of Operation Green. They brought many service project ideas that we looked into and decide which events we wanted to do and which ones we did not want to do. At the end of the session we had not only decided what we could do but also what we wanted to do. After this session we were also able to start researching how to make each of the chosen events scholarly, if we could.

End of the Semester Banquet Extravaganza

This happened in early June to try and create a fellowship and recognition event. One member, David Ibanez, spent several weeks getting other campus clubs, their officers and advisors to buy into a dinner honoring these clubs. PTK searched for an affordable restaurant, negotiated with the owners for a good menu, tirelessly encouraged many other campus clubs to attend and created an agenda through which each club honored its members and advisors during the course of the dinner. This sort of event was a first for the college. It was a great success getting several clubs comprised of upwards of 40 students, advisors and administrators.

Vision Walk: Finding A Cure for Blindness

The walk took place on May 31st. Working with a chapter alumni who was on the board of this new organization, the chapter created a Vision Walk Team and raised over $1,400 toward the total amount of $98,000 that was raised during this 7 mile walk in Golden Gate Park. Co-President, Denise Pincombe, attended kickoff meetings, gathered and handed out materials on this event, and recruited walkers and donations.

Afternoon of Academic Excellence (AOEA)

This was the chapter's 10 year anniversary of hosting this scholarly event. It is an event that honors every sophomore, junior and senior that is on the honor role in our local high schools. Maddie Parks and Mandi McIntosh spent months planning out the logistics, coping with unforeseen challenges, and working with the college and various high school coordinators. Mandi and Maddie recruited many chapter members to help collect over 3000 invitations to be sent out. They also made sure that over a dozen members would help during the event. The speaker, Viviana Alcazar, was a former PTK chapter president, graduate from Stanford University, and current PhD candidate at UC Berkeley.

Beach Clean-Up

Members of the chapter participated in a beach clean-up with CSM, De Anza and Napa Valley PTK Chapters. The clean-up occurred at the end of the week in which the Earth week fell at Popular Beach.

Creation of the PTK promotional video

After returning from the International Convention (April 2008) and attending several seminars on communication, promotion and explanation of PTK, two students (David Ibanez and Alex Garcia) spent several weeks developing a promotional video for the chapter. Alex and David learned at the International Convention that students are more likely to join PTK if their professors encourage them, so they decided to create a video to educate professors. This ten minute video highlights the chapter's diversity and dispels the myths of PTK elitism. This smart video showcased students majoring in different subjects and coming from different backgrounds. The video was sent to everyone on campus and created a huge impact on Canada College Faculty and District Officials. After the distribution of the video, Alex and David designed a complementary power point presentation and gave a presentation to the faculty and staff.

Planting Trees

The week of Earth Day the chapter worked with City Trees Organization. The chapter in conjuction with CSM and De Anza College Chapters planted trees in Redwood City.

International Convention in Philadelphia

This occurred in April 2008. Sent several members to study the Honors and Service Topic. The older members led an effort with the new members to visit Philadelphia as a group and create a fellowship bonding opportunity in order to facilitate the leadership changeover. Additionally, the chapter was recognized in the top 100 and Maddie Parks and Lorretta Farris were recognized as the most Distinguished Officer and Paragon Advisor, respectively.

Spring Induction

The induction was at Canada College on March 27th along with Skyline College.
The new honors topic was discussed and it was decided that the Dean of Humanities and Professor of Psychology, Katie Townsend-Merino, would be the Keynote speaker. She explored and discussed our Honors Topic: The Paradox of Affluence and its relation to the psychologists' research in the area of affluence and happiness.