ALB Graduates Inducted Into
National Honor Society

Historic Ceremony at 2003 Commencement

by Suzanne Spreadbury, Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs

Every Monday before Commencement the Undergraduate Degree Programs host a reception at the Harvard Faculty Club for graduating students. It is an event filled with fine food and drink, joyous students, and congratulatory staff. This year's event was even more celebratory, for it marked the birth of a new tradition in the Extension School's 93-year history. As part of the annual festivities, 13 Bachelor of Liberal Arts (ALB) graduates, representing the top ten percent of the 2002–03 graduation class, were inducted into the Extension School's freshly minted Phi Beta Chapter of the Alpha Sigma Lambda (ASL) National Honor Society.

Founded in 1945, Alpha Sigma Lambda is the premier national honor society for the adult nontraditional student. ASL is the only chapter-based national honor society to provide adult nontraditional students with an opportunity for the national recognition they deserve and have earned. By joining ASL and forming its own chapter, aptly named Phi Beta, the Extension School joins other local institutions such as Boston University, Emerson College, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts. Moreover, it joins national institutions such as Georgetown University, The Johns Hopkins University, New York University, Northwestern University, and the University of Virginia. In total, ASL has 285 chapters across the United States.

To ensure that the Extension School's first induction ceremony adhered to traditional ASL protocol, Dean Michael Shinagel and Suzanne Spreadbury, Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs, enlisted the help and support of long-time ASL member, Kenneth C. Solano, Associate Dean of University College, Northeastern University. Joining Solano were Elizabeth Curado, President, and Henry Rodrigues, Vice President, of Northeastern University's Iota Xi Chapter of ASL. Solano presided over the event by first explaining the history of ASL, then Curado described the qualities of academic excellence (alpha), scholarship (sigma), and leadership (lambda) expected of society participants, and Rodrigues formally inducted the students by leading them in the following pledge of membership: "I promise to uphold the ideals and further the aims of Alpha Sigma Lambda, believing that by so doing I shall increase my value to my college and to my community." All inductees wore caps and gowns at the ceremony and received a Phi Beta membership certificate as well as a pin, a regalia tassel, and a regalia cord, which they wore on Commencement Day.

The establishment of the Phi Beta Chapter of ASL is part of the Extension School's ongoing efforts to recognize the high academic achievement of its degree candidates and the Extension School is delighted to pay tribute to its students in this nationally recognizable way. Dean Shinagel and the ALB staff look forward to growing numbers of Phi Beta Chapter members who will assuredly contribute to the Extension School community and to the larger community as well.