Community College Faculty Members Appointed to Honors Program Committee
Dr. Liesl Ward, a faculty member at Jefferson State Community College in
Alabama and Dr. Ken Kerr, a faculty member at Frederick Community College
in Maryland, have been appointed to Phi Theta Kappa's Honors Program Committee.
They will serve four-year terms on the committee, effective July 2008.
Dr.
Ward will serve as the Humanities Representative on the committee and Dr.
Kerr will serve as the committee's Fine Arts Representative. The Honors
Program Committee leads Phi Theta Kappa's exploration of the Society's
interdisciplinary Honors Study Topic. The 2008-2010 topic is The Paradox
of Affluence: Choices, Challenges, and Consequences.
"We
are privileged to have Dr. Ward and Dr. Kerr as members of our Honors Program
Committee," said Phi Theta Kappa Executive Director Rod A. Risley. "Their
vast teaching experience in the areas of humanities and fine arts will be
invaluable to the committee in exploring this topic," Risley said. "We
welcome their expertise as dedicated Phi Theta Kappa advisors and as highly
respected members of their community college faculties."
Dr.
Ward serves as Chair of the Department of Communications and English at
Jefferson State Community College's Shelby Campus where she teaches composition
and literature and has served as advisor of Phi Theta Kappa's Beta Lambda
Delta Chapter for five years. The chapter was chosen Phi Theta Kappa's Most
Distinguished in 2008.
She has also served as a Faculty Scholar
for the Society's Honors Institute and is a certified instructor for the
Leadership Development Studies Program.
Dr. Ward received
a Bachelor of Arts degree from Samford University in English and history,
a Master of Arts in English from University of Alabama in Huntsville, and
a Ph.D. in American Literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr.
Kerr serves as an associate professor of English and Journalism at Frederick
Community College, where he has served as advisor of the Alpha Delta Sigma
Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa for two years.
He served as a Faculty
Scholar and 2008 Parnell Scholar for the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Institute
and has previously served as president of the Mid-Atlantic College Reading
Association and the Developmental Education Association of Maryland.
Dr.
Kerr received an Associate of Arts degree from Frederick Community College,
a Bachelor of Arts in music from Hood College, a Master of Science in writing
from Towson University and a Ph.D. from Morgan State University.
The
Phi Theta Kappa Honors Program Committee, composed of Phi Theta Kappa regional
coordinators, faculty advisors and consultants, and Headquarters staff,
biennially selects the Society's Honors Study Topic, an interdisciplinary
study used by chapters and colleges as the basis for honors study in colloquies,
courses, seminars and the Honors Seminar Series.
The Honors
Program Committee also publishes the Honors Program Guide, a resource
for exploring the Honors Study Topic, and assists in planning the Society's
Faculty Scholar Conference and Honors Institute, a weeklong summer conference
focusing on the Honors Study Topic.
Phi Theta Kappa International
Honor Society, headquartered in Jackson, Mississippi, is the largest
honor society in American higher education with 1,250 chapters on two-year
and community 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.
