When former Chief Minister H. Lavity Stoutt proposed the idea of a community college in the Virgin Islands, many residents thought it would never work, according to former legislator Eileene Parsons.
Mr. Stoutt would have been proud last week: The H. Lavity Stoutt Community College hosted the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society’s first Faculty Scholar Conference to be held outside of PTK headquarters in Mississippi.
About 35 scholars attended the event, which started Jan. 28 and wrapped up on Sunday.
“According to the delegates, they had a wonderful time,” said Dr. Sauda Smith, an HLSCC lecturer and PTK member who organised the event. “They learned an incredible amount on the history of the college and the political economy of the Virgin Islands.”
The conference is designed to prepare attending faculty for the PTK Honors Institute, which is to be held this year at Washington University in St. Louis in June. Besides working toward that goal, participants took trips around the territory.
For HLSCC, Dr. Smith said, the VI conference “means that Phi Theta Kappa believes that we have enough intellectual capital in this college.”
PTK, an international honour society for two-year colleges and academic programmes, has more than two million members and 1,200 chapters worldwide.
On Friday, conference attendees participated in a public panel discussion led by VI historians and scholars.
Because Ms. Parsons was unable to attend, her speech was read by the college’s associate vice president, Dr. Christina Hodge.
See the Feb. 6, 2014 edition for full coverage.
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