Phi Theta Kappa to Host “Pledge to Completion” Signing at Ivy Tech Community College

LOGANSPORT, Ind. — Ivy Tech Community College students will soon gather to sign the completion pledge as part of a national community college movement. The event is being hosted by Ivy Tech’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter at the Logansport campus on Friday, Aug. 29, at 5:30 p.m. Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society members are serving as the student arm of The Community College Completion Corps, a national education initiative.

Statistics show the surest way for anyone to land a job in their chosen field is to finish college and earn a degree or certificate.  That’s exactly what students at Ivy Tech Community College are promising to do by signing a mass pledge to complete their degrees and certifications before leaving community college for transfer or to enter the job market.

In April 2010, leaders of six national organizations representing the nation’s 1,200 community colleges signed The Call to Action, a pledge to increase student completion rates by 50 percent over the next decade. Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society was the only student organization asked to participate. In October 2010, the first White House Summit on Community Colleges was hosted by Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden and a community college professor. President Obama, philanthropist Melinda Gates and a host of speakers praised community colleges for serving approximately half of the nation’s college students and playing a pivotal role in educating the workforce.

President Obama has called for community colleges to produce an additional 5 million degrees and certificates in the next 10 years, part of his goal to restore the United States as the world’s leader in college graduates.

Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, is the largest honor society in higher education with 1,250 chapters on college campuses in all 50 of the United States, Canada, Germany, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the British Virgin Islands, the United Arab Emirates and U.S. territorial possessions. More than two million students have been inducted since its founding in 1918, with approximately 100,000 students inducted annually.