Hallmark Awards Resources
Sample of a 2004 Scholarship Hallmark Award - Winning Essay
Omega Sigma Chapter
Houston Community College
Houston, Texas
Searching for Scholarship
Sailing the high "Cs" of Chapter, College, and Community, Omega Sigma took to heart the old English proverb, "Health makes wealth" by exploring what constitutes wealth. From a soccer tournament to a day at the museum, a television series and a children's festival, our chapter discovered along our journey that wealth should be measured not only by material prosperity, but also by non-tangibles. These non-tangible treasures include the excitement of new knowledge, the fun of fellowship, the lessons of leadership, and the satisfaction of service. As we navigated the hallmarks, we learned that every endeavor ultimately contributes to the common "wealth," a word derived from the Old English word "weal," meaning "well-being." We began the year by committing ourselves to the goal of improving the overall well-being of our chapter, college, and community. Along the way, we discovered that our journey was just as important as our destination. Anchoring our comprehensive scholarship program was a commitment to providing opportunities to explore the depths of our common knowledge. While attempting to broaden the knowledge of our community, we recognized, like the early explorers before us, that our chapter was risking a voyage into the unknown.
The genesis of our scholarly adventure encompassed a most ambitious effort to inform the Houston community about our Honors Study Topic in the form of a televised series of interviews, called Health Matters. This series consisted of conversations with prominent health care professionals and educated an audience of over 500,000 Houstonians about current health issues. In preparing for these interviews, the chapter's understanding of the complexities in delivering proper health care increased substantially. Concentrating on wellness versus illness care and access to quality care, we discovered from our scholarly experts that there are no quick fixes and that society must be willing to change. By presenting this information to our viewing public, our chapter may have helped in some small way to begin the most difficult voyage of all: changing the way we think about our collective health.
Continuing to sail the seas of scholarship, our chapter formed a partnership with the John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science. At our Phi Theta Kappa Day at the Museum of Health, members hosted guests from sister chapters and encouraged them to peruse the displays in one of the nation's premiere health museums. We also invited biology instructors to answer questions on health and medical issues, providing attendees with the chance to learn even more about our Honors Topic. A highlight of the day came when we attended a lecture by Dr. Scott Lillibridge, Professor of Epidemiology and Director, Center for Biosecurity and Public Health Preparedness at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Lillibridge spoke at length about an issue at the forefront of our societal concerns: bio-terrorism. What Phi Theta Kappans learned is that the health risks of bio-terrorism, while real, are not as great as dangers posed by everyday living.
With the wind in our sails, our journey to educate Phi Theta Kappa members continued beyond the chapter and Houston community to the entire Texas Region as we introduced Operation Aware, an informative breast cancer awareness resource packet. Each packet came in the form of a slide show, crossword puzzle, and a brochure--distributed to all Texas regional chapters during October - Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Omega Sigma members researched, constructed and distributed these packets, each containing advice on early detection and treatment of breast cancer and tips for self-examination. At our October chapter meeting, we presented our slide show, spoke about Breast Cancer Awareness, and created and distributed pink ribbons as a symbol of our solidarity with the American Cancer Society and their goal to "…increase awareness of breast cancer, especially awareness of the importance of early detection." Much to our surprise, what we learned when giving the presentations was that not only women, but men in the audience seemed receptive to learning about this frequently ignored subject.
If society is going to continue on its journey of learning, it must also face the importance of ethics. Just as the captain of a ship must be ethical and make tough decisions as part of his command, so must doctors and health care professionals face ethical choices in treating society. With that in mind, Omega Sigma sponsored an "Ethical Issues in Health" Essay Contest, challenging Houston Community College students to think about the importance of ethical standards within our health care delivery system. Our contest began with a presentation to our English faculty, who, in turn, encouraged their students to explore and write about ethical issues in medicine. When the essays were written, read, and evaluated, the winners received cash prizes for their efforts. This topic proved very difficult, one which few students were brave enough to explore. Although entries were few, we discussed this important topic at meetings and other chapter functions, and we learned that decision-making within the arena of health care is never a clear cut, black or white issue.
Our next difficult port of call addressed domestic violence, a subject that is generally only whispered about. Each year, our administration requests that the Omega Sigma Chapter help broaden the scholarly atmosphere throughout the college community by actively participating in their Common Book Symposium. The book selection this year was Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories by Sandra Cisneros. After collectively reading the book, we decided to tackle the issue of domestic violence, a thread running throughout her stories. Some stories are based on an ancient Latino legend, "La Llorona," demonstrating that the history of women is strewn with violence. We took this ancient story and compared and contrasted it with a modern film, Enough. After offering our rendition of the story and showing clips of the film, we led a question and answer session, asking the audience to become actively engaged in this seldom discussed topic. The emotions this subject released, both in the audience and among our Phi Theta Kappa members, taught us that some topics often hit too close to home and are minefields in a public forum.
We weathered the emotional storms of our earlier projects and found ourselves in calm waters, surrounded by laughing children, on Halloween night at our College's Safe Halloween Fest. Borrowing the theme from Pirates of the Caribbean, we dressed up as pirates, blackened our teeth and invited the children to knock out the bad teeth from the mouth of a huge cardboard pirate. This drew their attention to the importance of proper dental hygiene and gave our members an opportunity to teach. After filling their hands with dried fruit and "pirate" treasures, we pulled anchor and set sail for our next destination.
Our quest for knowledge and understanding of the Honors Topic was strengthened off through the Phi Theta Kappa Satellite Seminar Series. Our intellectual fellowship with other chapters broadened our understanding of the various issues confronted in this important series. One final lesson we learned was that we must know how to share our scholarly understanding with others and sometimes, this process of gaining knowledge must be in writing. With that in mind, we sponsored the District IV Hallmarks Writing Workshop, in the hopes that Omega Sigma, in some small way, would have the opportunity to contribute to the communal knowledge of our district.
Although we reached our final destination, we learned through our Scholarship projects that the voyage was as important than the arrival, and in so learning, we redefined the value of wealth.
