(SIS) — Saipan International School held its National Honor Society, National Junior Honor Society and National Elementary Honors Society induction ceremonies on May 6, 2021 in the Queen’s Club at Kensington Hotel.
In many ways, this was a year of firsts for SIS and the National Honors societies. They have never held their inductions together before, or held them in masks or had to limit audience participation due to Covid restrictions but the students, staff and administration successfully came together for an hour-long induction ceremony followed by dinner at the Kensington.
The ceremony started with the current members ushering in the inductees to Pomp and Circumstance before they were forced to leave the ballroom to make room for guests.
In his opening remarks, SIS Headmaster Dr. Ron Snyder credited the success of the students to three things: Expectation, Opportunity and a Culture of Hard Work.
“Expectations of success begin at home, with the parents, where excellence is expected and students meet the challenge.”
He went on to say that the school builds off of these expectations by offering opportunities for personal, academic challenge through a rigorous course load that includes about twice the number of Advanced Placement courses than any other school on island.
“SIS offers 15 AP courses and the next closest school offers 8. And our students excel in these classes. The SIS pass rate for AP exams is 82%, while the typical global pass rate is around 60% and the rate is just slightly greater than 20% for the CNMI as a whole.”
He concluded by crediting the students for their own culture of hard work, in which they strive to meet the expectations by taking advantage of the opportunities placed in front of them and by excelling at their endeavors.
Adviser Ingur Lee then stepped forward and spoke about the five pillars of the national honor societies, represented by five different candles.
“Five candles representing scholarship, citizenship, leadership, service and character have now been lit. Each has its place within the life of a student, but as we see, each light is small and flickering by itself; it needs others to give a full, rich flame,” he began after current members lit the symbolic candles.
Then, as current members lit a candlestick from the main candle and passed it to the inductees, he welcomed the inductees by saying,
“The candle you receive tonight symbolizes our welcoming you into the National Honor Society or National Junior Honor Society. Its light is also a symbol of the five pillars. As you receive your candle, may it remind you to continue to strive toward the ideals of NHS and to light the way for others by your example.”
Ms. Eaton, the National Elementary Honor Society advisor, then repeated the ceremony for students in grades 4 and 5.
After a deafening round of applause by the audience, the ceremony concluded with a warm reception and fine dinner at the Kensington.
At SIS, the NHS, NJHS and NEHS have very stringent membership requirements.
To be considered, students must have at least 3.7 GPA and must go through a rigorous selection process.
The candidates are evaluated on the basis of character, leadership and service to the school and the community, and a faculty council decides the admission of the candidates.
To maintain membership, the new members must maintain the high standards and participate in a service project.
For the past years, NHS members of SIS have adopted a year-long school-wide mentoring program to assist elementary and middle school students and students who have special needs.
Because of cohorting restrictions for Covid-19, honor society members had to decide to virtually serve the community through Dosomething.org, in which members chose individually projects to fulfill the needs of the community, locally and globally.
For school year 2020-21, Saipan International School added Eunbi Choi, Zhouri Han, James Zheng, Francine Asedillo, Tiana Cabrera, Jesse Sablan, Linxi Cai, Sam Culp, Huiwon Jeong, Yunwoo Nam, Hyeonbo Shim, Rachel Shin, and Kexuan Yu to NHS and Seiyul Hong, Olivia Hwang, Da Soung Kim, Tae Kyoung Kim, John Linden, Andrew Sablan, Jayden Shin, Yebin Shin, Omari Joab, Charlene Son, Irin Chung, Jung Won Huh, Scarlett Kim, Daniel Joab, and Zi Hao Zhu to NJHS.
NEHS added Finn Altizer, Faith Ariola, Eliza Culp, Dean Duenas, Beatrice Gross, Michael Guintu, Theo Joab, Lya Kim, Yewon Huh, Yiming Li, Keoni Ruszala, and Alleena Villaluz to its membership.
With these additions, Saipan International School has 36 NHS members, 31 NJHS members, and 16 NEHS members.
