{"id":1691,"date":"2025-04-02T14:19:30","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/?p=1691"},"modified":"2025-04-02T14:24:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T19:24:38","slug":"phi-theta-kappa-wins-big-at-regionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/2025\/04\/02\/phi-theta-kappa-wins-big-at-regionals\/","title":{"rendered":"Phi Theta Kappa Wins Big At Regionals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Margo Lindsley, Ashlyn Guinn, Olivia Mukanjiri, and Logan Grigsby pose with awards. Photo by: Jesus Medina (Courtesy of Phi Theta Kappa)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">On March 1 and 2, JCCC\u2019s chapter of Phi Theta Kappa was one of the most awarded chapters at the Heartland Regional Conference, taking home eight prizes.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The JCCC Phi Theta Kappa chapter consists of about a thousand members, focusing on projects on campus.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c[It\u2019s] an honor society here at JUCO, and we do research projects and we have volunteering, service events, and we work on a college project,\u201d Ashlyn Guinn said. \u201cWe work with the college to help either with their needs or sometimes we can suggest something if they don&#8217;t have anything for us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The organization is currently working on a big mental health project.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe do service projects throughout the semester,\u201d Jet Cudnik said. \u201cWe try to do like one once a month, but that doesn&#8217;t always pan out. Our college project this semester is we&#8217;re putting up signage around our little walking trail, that&#8217;s going to be kind of like mental health stuff, fun little activity type things. And then we did a Honors in Action\u00ae project where we built pamphlets out for mental health resources, for people with neurodivergence. So mostly we tried to focus on people with autism and the big thing that was the power of stories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are also currently working to have a sensory space in the college\u2019s 10-year plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the month, the chapter was recognized at the recent Heartland Regional Conference Awards where they finished second place overall, and took home eight awards:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place Distinguished Chapter Officer Award (Chapter President Olivia Mukanjiri)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">1<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place Most Improved Chapter Award<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place Distinguished Chapter Team Award<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place Great Idea Award<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">2<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nd<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> place Honors in Action\u00ae Project Award<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">5-star Chapter Plan<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honorable mention Distinguished Chapter Officer Award (Ashlyn Guinn)<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honorable mention for College Project Award<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt&#8217;s a pretty really good feeling. I think there are 64 colleges in total. So, I think placing really in any number is like a really good feeling,\u201d Logan Grigsby said, regarding finishing second overall. \u201cBut knowing that we kind of got second place in a lot of these things is just really awesome and shows how hard working our team is.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guinn agrees with Grigsby and thinks the outcomes of their success come from their hard work.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cIt&#8217;s our hard work [that] paid off really, because I know\u00a0 last semester was fairly stressful for me and I think it was fairly stressful for a lot of us, especially finishing up,\u201d Guinn said. \u201cSo I know we put in a lot of work to like, try and make sure we got those awards submitted and things like that. And so it&#8217;s just kind of nice to know that it really paid off. And I&#8217;m at least hoping that this is kind of, you know, the start of something where, if training the next officers, they can then go on and win more awards and [start] that momentum, that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m excited about.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The team is going to the PTK Catalyst 2025\u2013the Phi Theta Kappa National Conference during the first week of April, and they are very excited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI am excited to go somewhere that I don&#8217;t know that we\u2019ve gone before, I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;ve ever gone to Catalyst, which is the national thing,\u201d Guinn said. \u201cSo I&#8217;m really excited for that and to see kind of what that is. And it&#8217;s in Kansas City, which is part of the reason why. So I&#8217;m just hoping to maybe be able to turn into something too.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">PTK Catalyst being in Kansas City is indeed a big reason to be excited for Jet Cudnik as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI feel really lucky that it&#8217;s in Kansas City, because they&#8217;re held anywhere in the country and the time we get second place, we get to have the chance to go to the one in Kansas City, which is really, really like what are the chances of that?\u201d Cudnik said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Margo Lindsley, it is another opportunity to grow closer with the team before they graduate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI really enjoyed our last conference because I got to like hang out, and really get closer with the team,\u201d Lindsley said. \u201cSo I&#8217;m hoping that this conference we could just strengthen that bond because we&#8217;re all graduating, so it\u2019ll be like that last hurrah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The PTK Catalyst 2025 will be held from April 3-5 at the Kansas City Convention Center.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To learn more about Phi Theta Kappa, click <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ptk.org\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And to learn more about JCCC\u2019s chapter, click <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jccc.edu\/student-resources\/honors\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, or email advisor <\/span><a href=\"mailto:adotter@jccc.edu\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anne Dotter<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c[It\u2019s] an honor society here at JUCO, and we do research projects and we have volunteering, service events, and we work on a college project,\u201d Ashlyn Guinn said. \u201cWe work with the college to help either with their needs or sometimes we can suggest something if they don&#8217;t have anything for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":1693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[200,201,115,202,206],"ppma_author":[158],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-ashlyn-guinn","tag-jet-cudnik","tag-logan-grigsby","tag-margo-lindsley","tag-phi-theta-kappa"],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Saul Epstein","author_link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/author\/sepstein\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/files\/2025\/04\/PTK-Awards-2.jpeg","coauthors":[{"link":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/author\/baptiste-raffin\/","display_name":"Baptiste Raffin"}],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">News<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Ashlyn Guinn<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Jet Cudnik<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Logan Grigsby<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Margo Lindsley<\/a>","<a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/category\/news\/\" class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Phi Theta Kappa<\/a>"],"unlinked":["<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Ashlyn Guinn<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Jet Cudnik<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Logan Grigsby<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Margo Lindsley<\/span>","<span class=\"advgb-post-tax-term\">Phi Theta Kappa<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 1 year ago","modified":"Updated 1 year ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on April 2, 2025","modified":"Updated on April 2, 2025"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on April 2, 2025 2:19 pm","modified":"Updated on April 2, 2025 2:24 pm"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":158,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"baptiste-raffin","display_name":"Baptiste Raffin","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","first_name":"Baptiste","last_name":"Raffin","user_url":"","job_title":"","description":""}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/files\/2025\/04\/PTK-Awards-2.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1697,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions\/1697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.jccc.edu\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}