Northampton Community College’s Tau Gamma chapter of Phi Theta Kappa received the International Five Star Award at the honor society’s international convention held earlier this April in Philadelphia.

^{Tau Gamma Members
Back row l-r:  Jennifer Lomerson, Ramy El-Khoury, Raymond Herron
Front row l-r:  Lauren Nation, Ellen Stocker, Michelle Adams, Tara Bealer, and Rebecca Danweber}


The Five Star Award is the highest award a chapter can receive. To gain five star status, a chapter must fulfill all requirements, including finishing projects in all four society hallmarks, conducting the prescribed amount of meetings, orientations, and inductions, and have up-to-date by-laws. The Five Star development program encourages excellence and recognizes progress in the attainment of goals set by the chapter.

Tau Gamma also won the Regional Four Leaf Clover Award, the Regional Fellowship Award, and the Regional Award of Achievement.

To attain Four Leaf Clover status, the chapter had to implement eight projects across four environmental service areas. The service areas included education and awareness, recycling, beautification, and community cleanup.

Tau Gamma’s service project at Jacobsburg Environmental Education Center, in which they invited regional chapters to help, earned them the Regional Fellowship Award. It is awarded to chapters that work with other regional chapters on a service project.

Each year PTK chapters are required to write and submit a six-page essay based on three of the PTK hallmarks: leadership, service, and scholarship. These essays must detail what the chapter has done throughout the year in those areas and incorporate the hallmark of fellowship into each one. The Regional Award of Achievement is given to a chapter that has the second highest average score on all the hallmark essays in the region.

In addition to the chapter awards, PTK member Michelle Adams was singled out with both the Regional Hall of Honor Member Award and the Regional Distinguished Member Award.

Michelle was nominated for the Distinguished Member Award by others in Tau Gamma. “We chose Michelle because she was a very active member in the chapter over the past year. She attended all our meetings and events. She helped out where ever she could and was the only non-officer to help write and prepare our hallmark award entries,” Raymond Herron, Tau Gamma public relations officer said.

The region judges select members for the Hall of Honor award from all of the Distinguished Member awardees. Michelle was chosen, and it makes her one of the top three members in the region. It is the highest member level award.

“These awards and achievements are even more special to us because this is the first time in many years that the chapter has been active enough to even be eligible,” Herron said. “Through the hard work of the members, officers, and advisors, we were able to build the chapter into an award-winning chapter from nothing.”

^{Left to right:  Tara Bealer, Raymond Herron, Michelle Adams, Ellen Stocker, Lauren Nation, and Jennifer Lomerson}