Phi Theta Kappa is an honor society for two-year colleges. This includes community colleges and technical schools, such as Washburn Tech. Entrance to the organization is based on grade point average and is open to all disciplines. Students who join this organization are considered members for life and Phi Theta Kappa Alumni of Washburn is a student organization at Washburn that seeks to extend that membership to the four-year university.

According to Paul Flumen, secretary of PTKAW, this is the first officially recognized Phi Theta Kappa alumni chapter at a four-year institution in Kansas, making PTKAW an organization particular to Washburn. This organization hopes their presence will make Washburn uniquely appealing to honor students transferring from two-year institutions.

“We think that if we have an organization like this here at Washburn, we can help with that recruiting because I believe there are thousands of kids in PTK around the state of Kansas,” said Thaina Jensen, president of PTKAW. “We could recruit hundreds of students possibly to come to Washburn just because we are here and they are familiar with PTK.”

Washburn also offers a scholarship exclusively for Phi Theta Kappa members.

“Washburn offers a PTK scholarship of $1000 just for having been a member of PTK,” said Kristen Kogl, vice president for public relations. “One of our main objectives here is to bring light to that scholarship and why a PTK member should be interested in Washburn.”

Phi Theta Kappa membership opens up other scholarship opportunities at Washburn, as well.

“I received the Marcoux Scholarship from the school of business, largely based on what I put in the letter, which was all about what I had done at Phi Theta Kappa,” Flumen said.

After his first year at Washburn, Flumen began working with the admissions office and PTK advisors across the state, hoping to start the transfer student equivalent of the FYE program.

“What we want to do is to try to provide a form of student support for the office of admissions in order to get that message out,” Flumen said.

Eventually, Flumen recruited Thaina Jensen for president of the organization and James Barraclough for faculty advisor.

PTKAW became officially registered March 21. They started the fall semester with eight members and have since grown to 17 members.

“These people have leader written all over them,” Flumen said. “These are brand new people who have a long way ahead of them at Washburn and can really accomplish some great things while they’re here.”

PTKAW looks to get engaged in volunteer opportunities on campus and hope to eventually start their own 5k.