Meet Sahar Merchant, a sophomore in the College double majoring in Political Science and Psychology from Northbrook, IL. In addition to being president of Phi Eta Sigma, Sahar is also SAPA trained; works for the Center for Mind, Body, and Culture; VP of Public Relations for Gamma Phi Beta; and a member of the Barkley Forum debate team! Read on the learn more about Phi Eta Sigma and how you can get involved.
Sahar and Sara Frank, VP of Public Relations for Phi Eta Sigma
HCE (Her Campus Emory): What is Phi Eta Sigma?
Sahar Merchant (SM): Phi Eta Sigma is a national honor society for first-year students at Emory University. It is one of the only three honors society’s recognized by Emory at graduation. Our goal is to encourage and reward academic excellence among freshmen of higher learning.
HCE: What are the qualifications needed to be in Phi Eta Sigma?
SM: Member Eligibility Criteria are: a cumulative grade-point average of at least 3.9 on a 4.0 scale at the end of the first curricular period of a student’s first year; a normal academic load (4 classes with a minimum of 3 credit hours each) acceptable toward a bachelor’s degree; and a class rank in the upper 20% of their class.
HCE: What are some of the ways Phi Eta Sigma is involved on campus?
SM: For our members, we hold three events and initiation each Spring semester. The first of our events is a service event. The second is a scholarship night where we invite teachers from all different departments. We want for students to get a chance to hear and learn about other disciplines besides their own at Emory. Since the purpose of Phi Eta Sigma is the interest of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, our goal is to spark curiosity in students in disciplines they would have never thought about before. Finally, we hold a Mentorship Night with another Emory recognized honors society Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), where ODK members discuss different ways to get involved on campus. We hold all of these events because we want students to have the opportunity to meet scholars from all academic disciplines on campus and to join them in promoting academic excellence and campus and community service.
HCE: What made you decide to become president?
SM: Two girls in my sorority were previously on the executive board last year, and so after talking to them about their experience I decided to apply!
HCE: What is your role as president?
SM: Planning all of our events is the biggest part of it. Most recently I’ve been reaching out to professors that exemplify the ideals of Phi Eta Sigma to come to our Scholarship Night, working with ODK Exec to plan our mentorship night, and find a service project for our organization to do.
HCE: What have been some of the challenges you have faced as president?
SM: There have been two main challenges this semester that I have faced as president. One issue is getting the word out about Phi Eta Sigma because not many people know about it until they get invited. Since one of the requirements for Phi Eta Sigma is a normal academic course load, if a freshman decides to drop a class during the semester or does not take enough credit hours, they cannot join. We obviously want as many people to be able to join, so our PR team has been trying to get the word out about our requirements so freshman can plan accordingly. To remedy this, we spoke during PACE classes and even sent an email through the RHA list serve. Another issue we face is working with the Oxford campus Phi Eta Sigma. We have a board at Oxford and all of our events are co-hosted with them, however, it is really difficult to communicate and plan everything over emails.
HCE: Are there any goals Phi Eta Sigma has for the upcoming year?
SM: My biggest goal for Phi Eta Sigma is to make our service event bigger and better than it has ever been. We have about 185 members that join every year and so I think we can do something really meaningful.