As a West Virginia State University student, I value and understand the importance of building relationships within the professional communities where I work and learn. An excellent example of participating in the professional community was in 2023-2024 when I was the Student Representative serving on the WVSU Board of Governors. This position serves as a reminder of the importance of duties and obligations and the confidentiality of trust in spoken words that are locked behind doors to create a future for an institution's success, financially and beyond, for growth and expansion along with recruitment, upkeep and appearance, and upholding prestigious standing in the community. I served one term and had great honors, holding an equal vote on matters that determined the institution's future. I even held distinctions during graduation ceremonies and broadened my connections externally by meeting the leaders of our community while participating in public events. My position was, in part, a member of the Student Government Association of WVSU, and for 2024-2025, I am the sitting elected Senator for the College of Professional Studies.

 

I also have had great honors in leadership roles in the Lambda Zeta Chapter of the Kappa Delta Pi national education honor society, receiving the highest rank of President before stepping down due to health concerns soon after receiving the honors. Within KDP, Lambda Zeta Chapter, our new Chapter Counselor, myself, alongside a phenomenal group of individuals, helped turn the chapter around and rebuild it from the ground up with a new foundation for a bright, renewed future! What exactly do I mean? With only three paid members in the organization in the early Spring 2023 semester, we were able to quickly change this to nearly twenty by May quickly, hold the first elections our chapter has seen in years, and develop learning communities with a dedication to writing scholarship workshops for applications, created committees and shared responsibilities that allowed everyone to have an active role and voice in the organization; we committed to community service projects, we devised fundraisers and social events that brought awareness to our organization and celebrated the 57th anniversary on our campus with a new publication Newsletter, the Lambda Zeta Chapter Periodical.

 

My time with Kappa Delta Pi began in May 2023, and since then, I have served as Vice President in the late Fall of 2023, leading up to the developments of the Spring of 2024, which were my election to President-Elect. With our accomplishments and renewed success, our active participation in social events and our online presence, we began to gain recognition; eventually, with the help of our councils, we sent in applications for which we had hoped to receive honors for our hard work. I was awarded the national recognition of a KDP 2024 Distinguished Officer Award and the Harold D. Drummond Scholarship! Lambda Zeta had earned the Phoenix Rising Award, an award that sums up our entire spring efforts, recreation rising from the ashes to be born anew!

​

Since 2022, I have been a member of the WVSU Reading Council and a West Virginia Reading Association affiliation. This organization has been the most active I have ever been involved with and brought me my first core memory of the most fantastic time spent with my Peers. Spending time doing conferences and working in the schools to make a difference was meaningful. This organization helped ensure students could read and know about West Virginia literature! "Dr. Stephanie Burdette, Dr. Elisha Lewis, and Professor Helen Southall were all the staff on a mission to organize us as students as we presented at the WVRA 66th Annual Conference. Our presentation, "Cultural Bias in Education: Using Children's Literature to Enact Positive Change," was associated with our university, and the research conducted by Dr. Lewis yielded eye-opening results. As student presenters at the conference,  we (Zachary Cochran, Haleigh Cook, Savannah Russell, and Darren Goodwin) needed to understand the impact that our research could have on future students. We needed to ensure that the results of our study were effectively addressed and shared with the audience," a restated quote from an article I published in the WVRA WVSU Reading Council's First Edition Newsletter. The WVSU Reading Council is dedicated to serving the local communities of our state, and that is a place close to my heart. I have worked with my peers to make impactful changes in the community service students' lives and been to conferences of learning opportunities with my peers in my learning community! The WVSU Reading Council is one of the real difference-makers in our local schools and communities!