PTK Awarded in PTK Catalyst Conference

The Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society at Wright earned the Distinguished Chapter Award for their chapter’s performance in their college project and Honors in Action. Wright’s Phi Theta Kappa chapter also won the Distinguished College Project Award, which is awarded to the top 50 college projects in the country, for the success of their college project in 2026. 

Their officers were flown out to Baltimore, Maryland. They received  their awards at PTK Catalist March 2026, which is a nationwide conference of the whole U.S. and other countries attended by about 3,000 students. The newly graduated president, Aya Bareket, said of the trip, “We got to sightsee a little bit. We actually saw Baltimore has the nation's first Washington Monument—So that was cool to see. And just like, walking around the neighborhoods, meeting other PTK chapters. Definitely a good experience.”

The community service projects are planned in collaboration with administration, A. Bareket explained the process of the project, “We met with our college president, Oroz, and we asked him, 'how can we improve Wright College?' He asked if we could beautify the campus in some way. Then we took that back to speak with our chapter advisors. They said, 'here's this opportunity there's trees that the Morton Arboretum donated, but they haven't been taken care of. So they're not in a good condition.' So we decided to combine that… we met with the Morton Arboretum and the facilities team at Wright College to make a plan, and then we ended up saving the trees… There were 16 trees to begin with. We were able to save 14 of them, and we replanted two So still 16 trees in total.” A. Bareket went into the way the project was further personalized, “In addition to just saving the trees, each tree got adopted by a department. So if you go out looking by the trees, there's like, a plaque … and it kind of gives them ownership over a part of the campus.”

Phi Theta Kappa’s incoming president, Hili Bareket plans to work toward attracting more members, assisting more members in receiving scholarships, and replicating the success of this year. Hili Bareket has been elected to be the vice president for Phi Theta Kappa in the Illinois region. 

If you want more information on Phi Theta Kappa, contact Hili Bareket at HBareket@student.ccc.edu.

Contributions to this article have been made by Cinthya Galvan and Ricardo Munguia-Mueller.

Post publish edit-

Original: Graduated president, A. Bareket has been elected to be the vice president for Phi Theta Kappa in the Illinois region. 

Changed to: Hili Bareket has been elected to be the vice president for Phi Theta Kappa in the Illinois region.