PR2014 Oct 28

PHI THETA KAPPA

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 28, 2014

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jill Swindle, 205.391.5823

jswindle@sheltonstate.edu

Phi Theta Kappa to Host “Commit to Completion” Signing at Shelton State Community College

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.

And that's exactly what students at Shelton State Community College are promising to do -- signing a mass pledge to complete their associate degrees or certificates before leaving community college for transfer or to enter the job market. Administrators, faculty and staff have also been asked to sign the pledge, committing themselves to do whatever they can to facilitate completion of student credentials.

On Thursday, October 30, at 9:00 a.m., in the Shelton State Martin Campus Atrium, students will gather to sign the completion pledge, part of a national community college movement. The event is being hosted by the college’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter. Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society members are serving as the student arm of the Community College Completion Challenge, a national education initiative. Learn more at www.cccompletioncorps.org.

Shelton State welcomes Dr. Rod Risley, Executive Director and CEO of Phi Theta Kappa, as the guest speaker. A reception will follow the program and all are invited to attend.

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. Phi Theta Kappa launched the Community College Completion Corps in response to this call.

At the 2010 White House Summit for Community Colleges President Obama called for community colleges to produce an additional 5 million degrees and certificates in the next 10 years, part of a goal to restore the United States as the world's leader in college graduates. The U.S. is now ranked 16th among industrialized countries in the percentage of citizens holding higher education credentials.

Students who complete their degrees or certificates will earn an average of $500,000 more over the course of their careers than their peers who did not complete. In addition, individuals with credentials are less likely to become unemployed than their co-workers who did not earn credentials.

Pearson is proud to partner with Phi Theta Kappa and the Phi Theta Kappa Foundation to promote completion awareness through their sponsorship of the C4 Toolkit used by chapters to plan events on their campuses. Learn more about Pearson at www.pearsonhighered.com.

Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, is the largest honor society in higher education with 1,280 chapters on college campuses in all 50 of the United States, Canada, Germany, the Republic of Palau, Peru, 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 135,000 students inducted annually. Learn more about Phi Theta Kappa at www.ptk.org.

# # #