The combination of varying cultures, languages and traditions were on full display at the World Language Honor Societies (WLHS) induction ceremony on March 8. Celebration and representation, along with academic integrity and dedication, can be found within the French Honor Society, Spanish Honor Society, Latin Honor Society, German Honor Society, and American Sign Language Honor Society.

Spanish teacher Monica Leiva-Moore, who sponsors the Spanish Honor Society,  holds high expectations for her members. “The goal is to encourage the students to complete their language studies throughout the years in high school,” Leiva-Moore said. “To go all the way to AP would be an encouragement, [along with continuing] further on in college so they can become bilingual and bicultural global citizens.” 

Spanish Honor Society president senior Rohan Misra has a strong outlook for the future of the honor society, for both the members and the projects ahead. “Our honor society has been doing a great job; we’ve been killing it on the community service,” Misra said. “We have a lot of new initiatives coming up on the horizon that haven’t been released yet, but other than that our members are really engaged and love participating in the chapter. It’s an awesome time.”

The expectations, community and culture within WLHS are undoubtedly strong, and members hope  that the newly inducted members will maintain this cultural aptitude that their given honor societies are held to. German teacher Charles Reimert has high expectations for his students. “It takes dedication and diligence to reach the honor levels of languages, especially because they don’t need to take the honor levels for their diploma,” Reimert said. “It is a special student that continues on.”

Despite the unanimous respect and integrity displayed towards the varying honor societies, opinions on the induction ceremony procedure were unknown to new members.

Junior Leslie Champion was unsure about how the induction ceremony would proceed, given that there are multiple honor societies present versus only having one like during the National Honor Society induction ceremony. “I think it will be a little different because it’s [multiple] languages and it’s [all] at the same time, apparently,” Champion said. “I think it’s probably something new and it may take a little more time than anticipated, but it’ll work out.”

Senior Santiago Villegas holds conflicting opinions about the night. “I think it went well,” Villegas said. “I feel good about it because it is an honor to be in that society. Doing French as a class is one thing, but it’s totally different to be in the society and be a part of that.”

Other students, such as French Honor Society member senior Salma Lahbibi, found the ceremony to be a great experience compared to her virtual induction ceremony in quarantine. “They had the chance to go on stage. For mine, I was watching it on my phone,” Lahbibi said. “I feel really great inducting all of these inductees for the first time, since mine was over quarantine so we had a little [Google] meet, but I’m really happy they had this opportunity.”