Are students just joining an honor society for the cord at graduation? Or are students joining clubs because they are actually interested in the opportunities it provides? Some students at Bob Jones High School may just want to be recognized for being a part of an organization. This could give them extra credit, develop their college resume, and make them seem like they are more involved at school.

On the other hand, some students love volunteering and participating in the various club activities. This helps them to gain more experience, connect with society, and help in community endeavors. But now, more and more students are only joining clubs and organizations for the recognition. Many students only want to join honor societies to get a cord at graduation. This is actually affecting the attendance of several nationally affiliated clubs that don’t offer cords at Bob Jones graduation.

The Key Club and Junior Civitan members have actually been declining over the past couple years. These drops in attendance may be because these clubs no longer offer cords for graduation. Although these nationally affiliated clubs still offer wonderful volunteer opportunities, many students seem to only be focused on the recognition. In a survey conducted between high school students at Bob Jones, only 29.2% of students are involved in a nationally affiliated club, while 54.2% are in an honor society.

Mrs. Windsor, the sponsor of Key Club/Junior Civitan, said, “attendance has dropped because of the lack of cords. When I first took over Key Club (over 10 years ago), we were able to get cords and had about 200 members. Since then, administration has decided to allow cords for honor society groups only and Key Club has dropped to only 30 members.”

Mrs. Windsor explained, “Key Club and Junior Civitan participate in many service projects together so we were hoping that the combination would increase the membership of both clubs. Students should be motivated to SERVE! Besides the fact that most college applications ask for service hours, it should just be enough motivation to help and serve the community and people who are in need.”

The vice president of Key Club, Claire O’Neal (11), said that Key Club and Junior Civitan combined “because we needed more members. The combination of these clubs will actually allow us to do more joint service projects.”

Claire stated, “as much as you want to believe that people do service for the community, they actually do it for the cords.” This is a major reason why many students no longer participate in certain organizations that do not offer cords. One way to show that Bob Jones students are dedicated in giving to the community is to get more involved, regardless of recognition.

One of the seniors, Brenna Kilpatrick, said, “I am in National Art Honor Society, and I chose it because I like art a lot, and because it looks good on a college application. I plan on majoring in art, and so NAHS allows me to be more involved in the art community, while also serving others. It looks good to colleges to be doing more stuff outside school hours, and the pretty cords are also a nice touch.” Many other students agreed with Brenna that they choose to join a club based on their interest in it, although they absolutely love the recognition aspect.

Malachi Battle, a junior at Bob Jones stated, “I’ve joined clubs for both reasons. There are clubs that seem to be only for recognition and cords, and there are clubs that are for leisure.” When considering this, many honor societies and nationally affiliated clubs actually offer similar volunteer opportunities, so why not join the one that offers more recognition?