Iona College joined the elite mass communication and journalism honors society Kappa Tau Alpha, which has only 95 chapters nationwide.

Kappa Tau Alpha recognizes juniors and seniors in the mass communication department who are in the top 10 percent of their class. Grade point average is the only requirement for membership in the 115-year-old honor society.

Mass Communication Department Chair, Dr. Bob Petrausch, welcomed the society into the department.

“We recognized the importance of the society to Iona and the students,” he said. “It’s a select society with a tremendous history and an elite group of students.”

In order for a college to be a candidate for the society, a number of criteria must be met.

The college has to be accredited in mass communication, the curriculum must offer a substantial course load and faculty must be evaluated to see if they are teaching at the highest level.

The mass communication department has recently gone through re-accreditation; that was the last criterion holding the college back from joining the society.

Although Kappa Tau Alpha considers juniors and seniors for induction, the school and department can decide whether it accepts both years or just one.

During the April 28 induction ceremony, only seniors were inducted. However, the department plans to induct both juniors and seniors.

“We thought honoring graduating seniors would be a great way to start the society off,” Petrausch said.

Kappa Tau Alpha differs from the mass communication department’s own honors society, which allows students with a grade point average of 3.5 or higher to be inducted.

Although the GPAs of the inductees were not disclosed, only the top 10 percent of students get to be inducted.

The mass communication department had been thinking about joining the society for a while, but it took a push from Dr. Anthony Kelso to get the process started.

“We felt that it was finally time to go ahead and do this,” he said. “We had discussed applying now for several years.”

Once the paperwork was filed, it took six months for Iona to be accepted.

Honorees were handed a laminated certificate and a key pin. The key is a symbol of knowledge and communication.

Other schools that are a part of Kappa Tau Alpha include University of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania State University, Syracuse University and Rutgers University.

Kappa Tau Alpha was founded in 1910 at the University of Missouri after the first school of journalism was opened there that same year.

Kappa Tau Alpha stood out from other mass communication honor societies at the time because it didn’t only award students who were closely aligned to the student publications.

It sought out to recognize those who worked hard in the classroom rather than those who worked on outside publications.

The minimum requirement for membership include at least five semesters completed and a minimum GPA of 3.0.