The National Honor Society, established in 1921, has been annually working to recognize outstanding high school students from all over the nation.
The Wesleyan chapter was founded primarily to increase desires to serve the school, boost enthusiasm for scholarships, promote leadership opportunities and encourage character development within the student body at Wesleyan.
Annette Smith, math department chair, shared more information on exactly what the National Honor Society is, as well as what it takes to be a part of it in a recent interview. She said, “[the] National Honor Society has been around for a long time. It looks at a student’s grades, character, leadership and service to the school, so there are four criteria.”
Smith explained that the National Honor Society are the people who work at graduation and baccalaureate. They help set each program up and make sure it runs smoothly which sometimes includes doing small jobs throughout the event. They also have some students who participate in a program tutoring other students at Wesleyan, and help out at the senior honors program.
Service is a huge part of the program. On the other hand, “Academic honor societies look strictly at grades,” Smith said. Therefore, there are generally less students accepted into them. But, once a student is accepted into either one of these societies they are in it for the remainder of their high school years. However, there are exceptions to this.
In National Honor Society, students can be asked to leave if they commit an honor violation. In academic societies, if a student’s grades drop they can also be asked to leave. At Wesleyan, Smith explained “usually at least half of the junior class [is accepted into one of the programs] and a few of the seniors that were not eligible before, for whatever reason.”
At this year’s induction, many students were recognized. To start the ceremony, National Honor Society President, Angela Yang, welcomed the new members and preceded to pledge them into their specified society. Yang, along with seniors Sarah Dryden, Patrick Ramsey and TJ Anderson lit the ceremonial candles.
The inductees participated in a series of pledges to initiate them into the National Honor Society as well as the academic societies. New members also received certificates and pins. This year’s group of new members included a large portion of the junior class, with a few seniors as well.
Wesleyan hopes to continue increasing the number of students inducted into both societies over the years.
