Language honor societies welcome new members
On Thursday, May 2, the Modern and Classical Languages Department at St. John’s held an induction ceremony for students who have excelled in all of their classes, but particularly their language classes. Their achievements allowed them entrance to the honor societies for Spanish, Latin, and French.
In order to meet the criteria, a student must have taken three consecutive semesters of the same language and be in the third level of it. Furthermore, they must have maintained an A average in the language class, while also earning a 3.6 grade point average overall.
The Latin Honor Society was one of three societies where students were inducted, with 17 new inductees. New member Mary Catherine Canary ’20 said, “Being inducted into the Latin Honor Society was incredibly special to me because of the tightly knit community our Latin class has formed over the past three years. We have all worked hard to maintain our high grades, and I am so proud of how far we have come.”
Another student inducted into the Latin Society, Paul Teter ’20, said, “It’s a great honor to be inducted into the Latin Honor Society, and something that I’ve looked forward to since freshman year. It took three years of hard work – memorizing grammar rules, translating passages, and learning vocabulary – to achieve this. Learning Latin so far has been a great experience for me, and it took a lot of work to get to this point. I feel very excited to finally be recognized for the work I put in.”
Rylee Saunders Jackson ’20 was inducted into the French Honor Society, which had 14 new members. She said, “I feel accomplished knowing that three years of hard work got me a French cord. I’m excited to be able to wear it on graduation day.”
The Spanish Honor Society had the most students inducted, 43, as most students at St. John’s take this language. Inductee Hien Ngo ’20 reflected on the immense impact that Spanish has had on her: “I never imagined that learning a language could have such an impact on my educational journey. Spanish opens a door filled with opportunities, and it allows me to experience the diversity within the world.”
Like the National Honor Society, the language honor societies require arduous work to be invited to join. All the students who were inducted have put in the work necessary. Congratulations to all of this year’s inductees!
