Global Citizenship Honor Society welcomes new members
By Nicholas Bainbridge // News Editor
On March 27, the Phi Beta Delta Honor Society welcomed several new members into its ranks. Phi Beta Delta is an organization that focuses on acknowledging international academic achievement. It was founded in 1986 at California University, and since then more than 150 chapters have been chartered, including the Zeta Beta chapter, which was founded in 2012 at High Point University.
The HPU Zeta Beta chapter of the organization held a ceremony at the Plato Wilson School of Commerce where several students and faculty members were inducted into the ranks of this group that proudly advocates for global citizenship.
According to Dr. Marjorie Church, president and chapter coordinator of Zeta Beta, Phi Beta Delta seeks to give its members opportunities to form connections with people across the globe, and she is working with the study abroad department to help students learn more about other cultures.
Chris Ferguson, one of the new members of the chapter and the study abroad adviser at HPU, had a similar perspective, saying that he was drawn to the organization because of its mission of “building cultural competencies and breaking down barriers for a better understanding of people around the world.”
The ceremony featured guest speaker Gaetano De Cataldo, a businessman who has traveled all around the world and espouses the virtue of traveling as a means of bringing different cultures closer together and gaining a better understanding of the world.
“Less than one percent of the world’s population willingly move to another part of the world, but it is only by living in another country that you fully understand another culture,” De Cataldo explained. He argued that in order to market products to different cultures, you need to have a strong understanding of that society. This understanding can only be earned by living amongst its people and immersing oneself in their way of life.
Business is not the only motivation for Phi Beta Delta’s dedication to globalization however. Dr. Jeffery Palis, one of the senior members of the organization, recently moved to HPU from Lamar University and transferred to the Zeta Beta chapter. According to Palis, globalization is also important because of its ability to promote a dialogue where people from different parts of the planet can share their diverse perspectives.
Palis has expressed great interest in continuing to push for the Honor Society’s goal of creating a more diverse campus at HPU.
“Phi Beta Delta’s role is to keep students on the path to global citizenship,” Paris stated.
It appears that progress is being made towards these goals. The HPU class of 2021 includes students from 24 countries outside the United States, which is eight more nations represented than that of the class of 2020.
The new student members of the organization also seemed to fit the desired mold of the Honor Society, as a majority of them were either international students or have studied abroad for at least one semester.
Palis said, “We want to make this school a place for global conversation with people from a wide range of different backgrounds.”