Veteran College Project Coordinator

By Erica Nieves

When I received my membership invitation in the summer of 2015, I couldn’t have been more excited. It was my first time being included into anything that has the word “honor” in it. Plus, my mother, a LaGuardia graduate, is a Phi Theta Kappa member. With her encouragement, I paid my $70 fee. I became an active member, hoping to be apart of something bigger than me. Fast forward to now, I’m the College Project Coordinator of the chapter.

As the College Project Coordinator, I keep in contact with members of the administration to discuss activities and plans within the Project. I also keep track of the volunteers, to ensure that their experiences are smooth and pleasant.

The funny thing is, this isn’t my first time as College Project Coordinator. My first run with being the College Project Coordinator was last year, working on petitioning the DOT to redesign Thomson Avenue under the advisement of the Government Relations manager. When elections came, I stepped down to give someone else the chance at a leadership role. When the last College Project Coordinator resigned, there was an opening. When no one else was able to take on the position, I became the College Project Coordinator once again.

This year’s College Project will focus on improving the retention rate of LaGuardia through six different angles. These six different angles by headed by six committees who want to study how students are responding to certain services and how they can be improved or revised. In the beginning phase of the project, I managed to get volunteers to collaborate with the Street Team to ask eligible students to fill out surveys. The next phase is the Oct. 20 meeting with the Knowledge Management Committee at 10 am and 2 pm, where I am still recruiting volunteers.

The second time around being the College Project Coordinator is different. I still get advisement from the advisors with the logistics, but advisement is not on a daily basis. With more discretion, I get to creatively figure out ideas which can improve retention rates, look up articles and research higher education, and figure what external forces are preventing LaGuardia students from graduating. Although this is an early, slow development of the project, I'm confident that with PTK’s involvement, the retention rate of LaGuardia will surely improve.