As school transitions back to a more normal environment, National Honor Society makes its transition as well, moving back towards a more typical experience.
Senior Imogen Sharif, NHS president, said that students must meet the four pillars of NHS in order to be inducted.
“It’s scholarship, which is based on GPA. Leadership, which is any leadership position. Character, you need to have a good character, you need to be a good person, generally speaking, and then service, which is helping out the community,” Sharif said.
According to Sharif, the pandemic has affected the NHS guidelines. Those circumstances continue to affect prospective members this year.
“We were really restricted in, like, what we can do, which was a combination of less service opportunities, along with the limited service requirements because of COVID,” Sharif said. “Last year, we were at 50% of pre-COVID hours, and now we’re at 75%.”
Faculty co-adviser Mrs. Alissa Harvey is aiming to make service a more essential component of NHS, especially coming out of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So our big goal is to really kind of take NHS and make it a lot more service-oriented,” Harvey said. “Obviously, the basis for which a lot of people qualify is the GPA…what I want any just to be different from years prior is like our commitment to service.”
Co-adviser Mrs. Lea Kerwood explained the historic difficulty of NHS guidelines, and what that means for the current eligible students.
“Service is a big commitment,” she said. “A lot of the kids are in extracurricular activities already. They’re taking really hard classes…so then to find the time to commit to a service outside of what they’re already doing, is really difficult.”
“But again, we really want to kind of set ourselves apart [and] be a big presence in the community,” Kerwood added.
While NHS is a unique opportunity for members to engage in community service, Harvey also believes that service opportunities should extend to other members of the school community.
“I think it’s something that we would like to include other students, especially underclassmen, because, you know, it’s hard to find some of those service opportunities… we’re trying to come up with as many lunch or fifth block opportunities as possible,” she said.
NHS applications were due Friday October 14, and 93 new members were inducted into the National Honor Society on Tuesday, Nov. 1.
Sharif wants new members to know that National Honor Society is more than a label or a ceremony.
“I want them to know that they should be participating in service as much as possible, and that the National Honor Society isn’t just a title to put on your college resume,” Sharif said. “It’s actually something that you have to contribute to.”
