As each academic year brings change to each college and university campus, each biennium brings change to Phi Kappa Phi. The staff at our national office continually strives to develop programming and initiatives that will serve those that work on behalf of the Society. Our announcement of a new program, the Circle of Honor Chapter Awards, came earlier this year, but the purpose of this update is to explain it a bit further.

The Circle of Honor program breaks chapter health and achievement down into two main parts – the Circle of Engagement and Circle of Excellence awards. These awards, given once a year, will recognize chapters for work in promoting excellence on the local campus and engaging the community of scholars. These awards utilize information collected throughout the year, so no extra information needs to be submitted to earn these awards.

The Circle of Excellence rewards work that exemplifies commitment and sustainability by rewarding criteria met annually. This includes:

• Hold an initiation
• Submit chapter officer roster
• Issue appropriate percentage of invitations
• Attend at least one training opportunity
• Submit reports annually and on time
• Submit a Fellowship nominee

The Circle of Excellence award is one that all chapters who are doing everything prescribed in the national bylaws should have a chance to receive, comparable almost to an honor roll of chapters.

The Circle of Engagement rewards work done by a chapter to improve chapter health and progress in areas shown to have a direct correlation to chapter sustainability. To achieve this status, a chapter should provide evidence of growth in one or more of the following eight areas annually:

• Increase in the number of chapter officers over previous year
• Increase in the yield of total new initiates over previous year
• Increase in the number of faculty initiates over previous year
• Increase in the number of reports submitted over previous year
• Increase in the number of total award applications 
• Increased participation in verified training opportunities
• Holding first initiation after 1 or more years of inactivity (a chapter can only receive this award once every 5 years)
• Sponsoring/co-sponsoring a university-wide event (other than an initiation) 

Badges that reflect the achievement of any of these goals will be awarded to the chapter. The hope is that the progress forward in any of these areas will be the work that the officers in these chapters are proud of and seek to accomplish in whatever way they see possible. 

The national office has worked hard to find different ways to recognize excellence among chapters, just as we all do for the students, faculty, staff, and alumni through the Society. For questions or more information, contact kwhite@phikappaphi.org. Further details and an assessment guide can be found here.