Nine students from the School of Journalism and Media and the Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations were initiated into the Willis C. Tucker chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha Honor Society on Monday.
Friends and family gathered in the College of Communication and Information lobby on Monday to celebrate the newest cohort of students to be inducted into the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Kappa Tau Alpha Honor Society chapter.
“Our Kappa Tau Alpha initiation ceremony welcomes nine students this year, all of whom are among the best of what we have to offer from the Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations and the School of Journalism and Media,” School of Journalism and Media professor and adviser of Kappa Tau Alpha, Erin Whiteside, said during the event. “You have all proven yourselves to be dedicated students, and we know that you are fully committed to your individual fields of study.”
Founded in 1910 at the University of Missouri, Kappa Tau Alpha is the seventh oldest college honor society in the United States. It is the only national organization honoring scholarship in the fields of journalism, advertising, and public relations.
The UT chapter is named for the late journalism professor Willis Tucker, who set up an endowment to cover the initiation fee for students in the College of Communication and Information.
“Professor Tucker believed students recognized for scholarship should not have to pay for that honor, and his generous donation lives on through all of our initiates today,” Whiteside said. “Our chapter is respectfully named after him and our initiates today will officially become members of the Willis C. Tucker chapter of Kappa Tau Alpha.”
The nine initiates are:
- Alexius Brunson, School of Journalism and Media
- Andersyn Jones, School of Journalism and Media
- Logan Korn, Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations
- Brynn Michael Brickell, School of Journalism and Media
- Justin Michael Falin, School of Journalism and Media
- Emma Johnston, School of Journalism and Media
- Holt Jones, School of Journalism and Media
- Emma Minar, Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations
- Isabella Sucheski, Tombras School of Advertising and Public Relations