A Century of Alpha Chi

Last year saw Alpha Chi reach a significant milestone—its century mark—when it celebrated one hundred years of recognizing exceptional college students and striving to make scholarship effective for good. On February 22, 2022, representatives from the National Council, Alpha Chi’s headquarters, and several colleges gathered on the campus of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, for a ceremony to mark the date and place of the young organization’s first official meeting in 1922. Alpha Chi historian Dr. Robert Sledge, Council President Dr. David Jones, and Executive Director Lara Noah were privileged to say a few words to mark the special occasion.

Seeds planted that day in 1922 would grow into a national honors organization with more than half a million members a cause for celebration that continued the next month at the 2022 National Convention held in nearby Austin, Texas It was held safely in spite of the ongoing, though lessening, effects of COVID-19, with over 200 student members, advisors, and alumni, vaccinated and masked, gathered together Starting with a look to our past with Dr. Robert Sledge and Dr. Dennis Organ, authors of the now 100-year history of Alpha Chi, Scholarship & Character, delegates enjoyed many stories of the society’s early years

Sledge and Organ were then bestowed with new honorary titles of Council President and Executive Director Emeritus, respectively, to the applause of a grateful audience. In the two days that followed, a bevy of student presentations, always the highlight of the convention, two memorable outdoor picnics, networking events, and scholarship and member award presentations finished out the memorable event.

Convention-goers enjoyed visiting with new members, current advisors, and several former chapter sponsors and members of the National Council who came back to celebrate and share memories of their Alpha Chi years. In order to memorialize the week, a commemorative picnic blanket and copy of the updated Alpha Chi history went home with each delegate.

FAREWELLS & GREETINGS

Last May saw the retirement of Alpha Chi staff member Melinda Hicks. With her Alpha Chi career spanning seventeen years of service on many different programs and initiatives, our “one-woman art department” was ready to retire to spend more time with her family. With our deep appreciation, best wishes, and a special book filled with memories, letters, and photos of her art and logos from over the years, we reticently sent her out to do just that. But no one will ever take Melinda’s place in our hearts!

The summer months at Alpha Chi’s national headquarters are usually reserved for special projects, but an unplanned project last summer was getting back to a full staff of four. Last August we were happy to add a recent college graduate, Ka’Shayla Banks, as our administrative support specialist. Ka’Shayla quickly helped us catch up on some of the planned summer projects that had been on hold, and we know many of you will get to meet her at the convention in late March.

Following a reconfiguration of responsibilities and with plans for increasing member communications, a new staff position was created for a full-time Communications Manager Upon completing a competitive national search, we added George Kantelis to the team

George recently received his M S in Public Interest Media and Communications Studies from Florida State University and is Alpha Chi's first full-time employee to work fully remotely Since last August, George has been instrumental in getting the fall issue of Aletheia online, giving our social media a fresh look, generating new video content for our website and social media, and is excited to work on his first national convention this year

David Jones (Westminster College), Jodi Pilgrim (Univ of Mary Hardin-Baylor), Lara Noah, Katie Holmes at Feb 22, 2022 centennial ceremony

REMEMBERING WALLY

More good news arrived last summer in the form of the largest donation Alpha Chi has ever received from a single individual Carolyn Freeman, widow of the late Dr Walden Freeman, sent a letter to say she would be making a donation to the scholarship fund in her husband’s memory Dr Freeman served as an Alpha Chi chapter advisor at two different colleges through the 1970s and 1980s, and as a National Council member and a Council officer until the mid-90s.

Mrs Freeman’s generous gift allowed Alpha Chi to endow an additional $4,000 graduate study fellowship to given for the first time this year Freeman was Council Secretary when Lara Noah joined the staff in 1993, and she recalled how devoted he was to Alpha Chi and the dedication he showed as chair of the Scholarship Committee "I consider Wally one of the most influential leaders from my earliest years with Alpha Chi," said Noah

With this new scholarship in place, many Alpha Chi members in the future will continue being blessed by Wally and those like him.

DIRECTORS HONORED

There were two other Alpha Chi greats honored last year when national scholarships and competitions were named for them The first was Dr Dennis M. Organ, an Alpha Chi alumnus and its second Executive Director, for whom a graduate fellowship for fulltime master’s level study was named.

The first $4,000 Organ Fellowship will be awarded in Fall 2023 and honors the Alpha Chi leader who, among many other things, contributed the most to Noah's growing appreciation for this organization.

The second honoree was Dr. Trisha M. Yarbrough, the society’s third executive director who was responsible for the idea that Alpha Chi, a multidisciplinary organization, should proactively encourage collaborative undergraduate research with an express focus on finding solutions for real-world issues thus clearly making “scholarship effective for good.”

Yarbrough saw this annual chapterbased collaborative student research competition awarded for the first time in 2014 In 2022 her name was officially associated with the competition, and her awards were given to two worthy student teams. Collectively, the influence and leadership of these two directors has had a far-reaching impact that needed to be recognized in fitting ways.

And through all of that, more new Alpha Chi members were inducted into our esteemed honor society to receive the recognition they earned and benefit from membership On campuses and in communities across the country, children’s literacy events, food drives, tutoring programs, panel discussions, medical services events, and taco soup nights in an advisor’s home took place and ensured that Alpha Chi members were able to engage in making their scholarship effective for good.

Alpha Chi looks forward to working with all of our chapters and members in the coming year!

Dr Robert Sledge addresses the audience at the Feb 22, 2022 event at Southwestern University

LauraTrombley (Southwestern University President), having just been granted honorary membership by David Jones and Lara Noah