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A Peek Into The Alpha Phi Scholarship Foundation

alpha phi scholarship program spotlight

Not only is Alpha Phi an incredible organization for the service and leadership they provide, but they also offer scholarships for academics. The stories that come from the students receiving the scholarships are incredibly moving and absolutely worth noting. They have been offering them since 1959 and continue to do so today. 

Alpha Phi is aware of the rising costs of higher education and wants to assist its members with funding it as much as possible. 

“Samantha Bliss Mullin (Theta Tau–Rensselaer) shared that although she “knew it was a good decision to get a graduate degree, the reality of the cost of education was pretty daunting.” Now able to focus on her graduate research and worry less about her financial obligations with the help of a Alpha Phi Foundation scholarship in 2017, Samantha went on to finish graduate degree on an accelerated track.”

-Alex Goodman alphaphifoundation.org

They are able to fund these scholarships through generous donations, mostly from the alumni of Alpha Phi. You can read more of Alex’s story highlighting their scholarship program on their website.

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An Update on Our 2019 Scholarship Winner: Anthony Neil Tan

We reached out to Anthony Neil Tan this spring for an update on his Maker Hub Club and where they are today. He did such a great job highlighting their accomplishments that I will let you read it directly from him, instead of paraphrasing it for you! You can see the post on him as a scholarship winner here.

From Anthony:

💸Our student maker funding program called Instructor Awards, where students write an Instructable teaching others how to make something and receive reimbursement for material expenses.

  • Custom Gaming Keypad With RGB 
  • How to Refurbish an Old Skateboard

💻We taught an 8-week virtual Arduino Programming Workshop to 10 students hailing from across the nation

⚙️We held monthly Makers Meetings to foster community and held engaging activities

  • We held an April Fools Prank challenge where two winners were awarded with a $25 Amazon gift card each.
  • Check out a video on one of the winning projects here.

🎉We got t-shirts and keychains to spread our spirit and pride in what we do!

  • We got 26 t-shirts (16 for volunteers and 10 as prizes for our student maker spotlights and for our special awards recipients in the 2021 InventorsFair, which we participated in as judges.) 

🎤We participated in Makers + Mentors’ Make For All Commitments in support of maker-centered learning!

  • I’ll be a guest speaker at the Make For All Commitments Celebration event, representing Maker Hub Club and speaking about the wonderful experiences of being a student maker.

✔️We are rebranding to Student Makers because we feel this organization name truly resonates with our commitment to serving the student makers community!

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Spotlight on Alpha Phi

spotlight on alpha phi

Alpha Phi’s history began in 1872 when ten women came together because they too wanted to be involved with something on campus of their university, but were denied access to their school’s fraternities. From this, they started their own women’s fraternity, which became the Alpha Phi sorority.

Their philanthropy is based deeply on service. “How can we serve and help?” is always the question on their mind, along with their motto, “Union Hand in Hand.” 

“You will find a group of women passionate about making the world a better place. Whether it’s initiating community service efforts, raising awareness for heart health, or navigating the unique and challenging issues facing women on today’s college campuses, we stand together boldly to make a difference on our campuses and in our communities.”

-alphaphiorg

They also pride themselves in the inclusive community they create at their sororities. They create an environment where you can feel at home away from home, get involved in your community, create lasting friendships, and grow as a leader. 

“Every year, nearly 9,000 new members find a home in Alpha Phi. Like you, they too were looking for a place where they could confide in others, share new experiences, conquer difficult challenges, and achieve things they never thought possible.”

“More than 270,000 members found a community of friends who impacted their collegiate adventure for the better… and so will you. In Alpha Phi, you’ll have sisters standing shoulder to shoulder with you through the ups and downs of your college years. And perhaps the most surprising gift of all is that this Alpha Phi family extends well beyond your college years… Alpha Phi sisterhood means friendship for life.” -alphaphi.org

Joining Alpha Phi is participating in a lifelong sisterhood!

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A New Page Just for Personality Typing in the Classroom

Over the last few years of writing for this blog, I’ve featured a variety of different personality typing and how to use the knowledge of these in your classrooms. They’ve become more and more popular posts over time. Today I wanted to share it with you, my new page chucked full of this information for you! 

On the page, you will see buttons with links to each different personality series. Clicking these links will bring you to a new page where you have easy access to the different personality types in that category and the articles on using the knowledge of this in your classroom. 

You can find the new page here. 

Have you started using personality typing in your classroom? Which test do you prefer, and how has it helped you as a teacher? 

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Greek Week Activities: A List of Ideas for Your Organization

greek week activities and ideas

It’s Greek Week season! This means planning, planning, planning! Greek week is fun and exciting for everyone involved. One of the best parts of Greek Week is that there is always an activity to attend somewhere. BUT. For those on the planning committee, it is a lot of work. So here is a list of some Greek Week activities for you to consider. 

Have a guest speaker

Chalk competitions outside of your organization’s house 

Canned food drives

Sporting events- softball, kickball, pickleball, mud volleyball, etc! The opportunities with this are endless, there are so many sporting events you can put on! 

Nail painting night

Obstacle “American Ninja Warrior” courses 

Lip sync battles

Minute to Win It games

Talent show

Pie eating contests

Greek week is an important week where Greek organizations can come together and get to know one another. It’s celebrating brotherhood and sisterhood and everything each organization represents. Though Greek week is a lot of work for many individuals, everyone will always agree that it pays off and is incredibly fun to spend the week doing these various activities and getting to know one another. 

Do you have any other activities you do during Greek Week that you would add to this list? 

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Maybe We Don’t Need To Be Worried About Our Future

the youth of our future is inspiring

Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time talking and interacting with high school-aged students. This has been through our recent scholarship, through serving the youth of my community, and through visiting high schools to spread the word about our 2022 scholarship. 

I’ll have to admit, the last time I spent this much time with kids ages 14-18 was when I was that age! Though I’m not too far off in age from them (about ten years their elder), I still have felt a disconnect to this age and culture that I’ve had to reprogram my brain to figure out. And like the majority of our society, I originally looked at this age group and was worried about our future! The way they talked, dressed, thought, and even walked had me worried that someday our world would be run to the ground by these children when they turned into the adults that would be the leaders of the country. 

However, after more interactions and more conversations, my thoughts on their future flipped. 

Though they walked and talked and interacted differently than what I was used to, they are still filled with big ideas and dreams, and hopes for the future. They are still amazing leaders with budding skills on how to work together as a team to accomplish tasks they need to be done. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and check out our past winner’s page for our scholarship. There are 7 OUTSTANDING students that noticed a problem in their community and set out to solve it, whether in a group or by themselves with a mentor’s help. And these are just the winners! I read through dozens and dozens of applications with similar drives to help their community in some way. There was not one single application that did not deserve some recognition for the work they were doing, they were all inspiring. So you can imagine, choosing a winner was very, very hard. 

And this was just my interactions with high school-aged students applying for a scholarship. I’ve also been able to interact with the youth of my community through service in my church, as well as brief interactions with this age of kids in high schools. And yes, I will still always question why they are so into TikTok or why crop tops are the shirt of choice right now?? But the coolest thing about the human race is that we don’t all have to think, act, and dress alike to get along or understand one another. 

These 14-18-year-olds are coming into our society with newfound knowledge of technology, social media, teamwork skills, and more than we as older generations cannot comprehend or will never know. 

So, maybe we really don’t need to be worried about our future. Maybe this TikTok, crop top generation has a thing or two to teach us about life. 

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Scholarship Winner Update: Caitlin Gill

Our 2020 scholarship winner, Caitlin Gill, was an inspiration to everyone when she created F.L.EX.S.P.A.C.E., an online platform for students with disabilities to come together for various activities. You can read our original blog post on Caitlin here. 

One year later, here is the update Caitlin sent us: 

“F.L.EX.S.P.A.C.E. is doing very well! We currently have events six days per week including workouts, a Music Jam Session every Thursday, and a social event on Saturdays. Twice a month we have in-person events either at a park, food place or at the movies. We recently had a Movie Night Out where we saw Space Jam together. 

For the month of June, we provided daily life skills and wellness workshops online via Zoom. These were a huge success as we encouraged independence by teaching important skills. The most popular workshop was our “Cooking with Caitlin” workshop where we cooked something new every Monday. 

The scholarship that HonorsGradU provided has enabled us to purchase supplies for our in-person events, cover technology costs (since we are mainly online), cover tax document costs and provide a means to host our social events. I cannot thank HonorsGradU enough. I have received so many comments from families and participants expressing how important F.L.EX.S.P.A.C.E. is to their social well-being. We would not be able to impact our special needs community without your support.”