• Academics |
• Admissions |
• Student Life |
• Calendars & Events |
• News |
• Contact

• Spanish
• Modern Languages
• Language Laboratory
• Resources
• Goals
• Catalog
• 2006-2007
• Major Requirements
• Opportunities
• Sigma Delta Pi
• Internships
  • Internship Sites
  • Manuals and Syllabi
• Study Abroad
• Faculty
• Mary Docter
• Leonor Elias
• Alumni
• List by Year
• Alumni Advice

Spanish Honor Society

Spanish Honor Society

Sigma Delta Pi, the National Hispanic Honor Society, is the largest and one of the finest foreign language honor societies in existence. It was established in 1919 at the University of California, Berkeley, and has chapters at such institutions as Columbia University, Cornell, UCLA, Stanford, and the University of Chicago, to name just a few. Westmont’s chapter, Tau Xi, was founded in 1994, and already has over 100 active members. (To download the electronic edition of T. Earle Hamilton’s book Sigma Delta Pi: A Brief History (1919-1994) as an Adobe Acrobat file (.pdf) click here. Please note that this is a large file that may take time to download.)

Each April, Westmont conducts its induction ceremony of new members in Hieronymus Lounge, followed by a dinner banquet at La Playa Azul Restaurant. During the formal ceremony, in which current members also participate and to which the entire community is invited, students learn about the history of the society and the meaning of the its name and insignia.

The purposes of the Society are:

• to honor those who seek and attain excellence in the study of the Spanish language, literature, and culture of the Spanish speaking peoples;
• to honor those who have made Hispanic contributions to modern culture better known in the English-speaking world;
• to encourage college and university students to acquire a greater interest in, and a deeper understanding of Hispanic culture;
• to foster friendly relations and mutual respect between the nations of Hispanic speech and those of English speech

Requirements for Admission: Students must be invited to join Sigma Delta Pi. To qualify they must:

• have completed at least 3 semesters of college work
• rank in the top third of their class
• have completed at least 2 upper-division courses in Spanish with a minimum GPA of 3.0
• show genuine interest in things Hispanic
• be of good moral character

Current Members, chapter Tau Xi: