A new honor society, Delta Alpha Pi, is in the works at Oregon State University. DAPi aims to give recognition for disabled students and award scholarship opportunities.
The society was “founded to recognize high-achieving students with disabilities who are attending colleges (including community colleges),” according to the DAPi website.
Marina Ketrenos, president of the Disabled Students Union, is leading the charge to establish a chapter of DAPi at OSU. With 29 different honor societies currently recognized by OSU, this will be the only one that recognizes disabled students and their academic success specifically.
A sticking point for many honor society chapters is their extra curricular and community service requirements, which may be burdensome or inaccessible for certain disabled individuals.
Aiming to avoid this problem, Ketrenos said there will not be any extracurricular requirements. “The only really non-academic requirement is that the applicant is interested in disability and supports the community and is disabled,” she said.
In the face of inaccessible infrastructure and expensive or lengthy documentation processes for diagnoses, DAPi allows students to self-certify as disabled. Disability Access Services documentation, while not necessary, can also be used in this circumstance as evidence of disability.
There are academic requirements for undergraduate students, Ketrenos said: “You have to have completed at least 24 credits, achieved a GPA of 3.1 on the 4.0 scale.”
The academic requirements for graduate students differ slightly. “Graduate students have to have (completed) 18 credits, 3.3 GPA,” Ketrenos said.
The only requirement beyond enrollment, GPA and being disabled, Ketrenos added, is that students must have a demonstrated interest in disability issues and topics.
OSU’s chapter of DAPi will be available to all qualified OSU students whether they take classes at the Corvallis campus, the Cascades campus or through Ecampus.
Ketrenos plans to use Zoom for accessibility purposes. She said: “It is one of the priorities for me, to make it accessible to Ecampus students and in-person students who can’t attend in person.”
To make the chapter as accessible as possible, Ketrenos plans to make the entry fee either free or a small amount that can be opted out of if members can’t afford it. With the latter comes the option to pay for somebody else’s fee.
Ketrenos said joining DAPi affords students many benefits, including scholarships, leadership opportunities and community.
About scholarships specifically, Ketrenos said: “It’s for $2,500. One person is awarded it each year.” The $2,500 scholarship is through DAPi itself. It is available to members of the chapter.
As DAPi is an honor society, membership can be placed on a resume as a mark of academic excellence.
Starting out, there will be at least four leadership opportunities: president, vice president, treasurer and secretary. “If there are enough people interested, we can expand the leadership opportunities to more than four positions,” Ketrenos said.
There will also be free DAPi events open to the OSU public. Many will be hybrid to provide maximum accessibility for Ecampus students.
As for the near future, Ketrenos is hopeful that they might get a grant to cover establishment costs. If they can’t, she said, “There may be some fundraising efforts happening in the fall term for the $300 establishment fee.”
