Dennis Kelly has a long history with two-year colleges ranging from attending one as a student years ago to his work today in heading an enrollment management staff that actively recruits transfer students to continue their education at Wilmington College.
The international education honor society, Phi Theta Kappa (PTK), recognized Kelly with honorary membership Saturday at the 35th annual PTK Ohio Region Awards Convention hosted by Clark State Community College in Springfield.
Kelly serves as Wilmington College’s senior vice president/chief enrollment officer.
Susan Morris, Phi Theta Kappa student adviser at Southern State Community College, conducted the induction ceremony.
She noted that honorary PTK membership is reserved exclusively for those who exemplify support in promoting the honor society’s mission at the local level. Many PTK members attend two-year schools seeking associate degrees, so the honor society places a special emphasis upon creating awareness and support for what’s next in their educational journeys.
Many go on to earn bachelor’s degrees at transfer student-friendly institutions like Wilmington College. The College is actively engaged in numerous articulation pathway agreements with two-year schools, which accommodate a seamless transition to WC, and offers the especially supportive Transfer Advantage and Transfer Opportunity Initiative programs.
Morris cited this fall when Southern State’s Alpha Omicron Eta chapter partnered with Wilmington College in hosting PTK’s Ohio Region Conference on WC’s campus. “Honestly, we would have never been able to do this on our own,” she added. “It was a partnership that solidified relationships between WC and SSCC with PTK at the local, regional and international levels.”
She praised Kelly and the College for helping to fulfill the mission of Phi Theta Kappa, which is “to recognize the academic achievement of college students and to provide opportunities for them to grow as scholars and leaders.”
“We felt it important that Dennis now have an official membership and home chapter,” Morris added.
Kelly expressed his appreciation for being inducted into the largest higher education honor society in America, which has more than 1.3 million members in the United States, Canada, Germany and Japan.
“Becoming an honorary member will allow me to fully understand the internal and external mission of PTK that I have supported as a college partner throughout my career,” he said, noting his membership will serve to further “strengthen” the relationship between transfer students and Wilmington College.
Throughout Kelly’s career, he also has played a key role in building strong PTK partnerships at each of his previous institutions of employment.
Most notably, while serving as an enrollment management administrator at Marywood University (PA), he organized national outreach to students at Gulf Coast institutions who were adversely impacted by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Kelly and Marywood each received PTK’s Transfer Champion Medallion, which recognized MU’s leadership of the Katrina Relief Effort that led to numerous institutions also making it possible for those students to continue their studies at schools across the nation.
Also, in 2020, Kelly was selected to speak at the inauguration of a PTK chapter at his initial alma mater, Atlantic Cape Community College in New Jersey.
