Lenore Shoults awarded Phi Kappa Phi literacy grant

June 18, 2010 -- Lenore Shoults, assistant director, Arkansas State University Museum, was awarded a 2010 Literacy Grant by the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. She is one of 12 recipients nationwide to receive such an award.

Through this literacy grant, a Family Reading Castle area designed to encourage literacy through parent and child reading time will be established in the Museum and online. A read-along version of nursery rhymes, based on a collection of handmade Mother Goose dolls in the museum’s collection, will be displayed in a castle tower window.  Additional imagination triggers in the interactive area include a tuffet and a drop-down spider, puppets, and books. Members of Phi Kappa Phi’s Arkansas State University chapter will conduct a media campaign to promote the literacy initiative.

The Phi Kappa Phi Literacy Grants program was initiated in 2003 to provide an opportunity for campus chapters and individual members to reach out to local communities to share with them the love of learning. Drawing from a multi-disciplinary society of students and scholars from large and small institutions located in both urban and rural communities, applicants are encouraged to consider literacy projects that have creative relevance to their disciplines and to the needs of their communities. Phi Kappa Phi has awarded more than $150,000 in literacy grants.

Founded in 1897 and headquartered in Baton Rouge, La., Phi Kappa Phi is the nation’s oldest, largest, and most selective all-discipline honor society. Phi Kappa Phi inducts annually more than 30,000 students, faculty, professional staff, and alumni. The society has chapters on more than 300 select colleges and universities in North America and the Philippines. Membership is by invitation only to the top 10 percent of seniors and graduate students and 7.5 percent of juniors. Faculty, professional staff, and alumni who have achieved scholarly distinction also qualify.

Since its founding, more than 1 million members have been initiated. Some of the organization’s more notable members include former President Jimmy Carter, NASA astronaut Wendy Lawrence, writer John Grisham, and Netscape founder James Barksdale. The society has awarded approximately $12.7 million since the inception of its awards program in 1932. Today, more than $800,000 is awarded annually to qualifying members and non-members through graduate fellowships, undergraduate study abroad scholarships, member and chapter awards, and grants for local and national literacy initiatives. The society’s mission is “To recognize and promote academic excellence in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in service to others.”

For more information on Phi Kappa Phi, please call 800/804-9880 or visit www.PhiKappaPhi.org.

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