Dr. Joan Fedor: A Love Affair with the Honors Institute
It’s one of the Phi Theta Kappa legends – that a long-ago conversation over a fence would have lasting impact on honors education.
Dr. Joan Fedor has had a long and distinguished career as an educator, as a Phi Theta Kappa chapter advisor at Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington, and as Washington Regional Coordinator. She and her late husband Bob were among the first to endow an Honors Institute Lecture, and she remains a member of Phi Theta Kappa’s Honors Program Committee.
But in the early 1960s Joan Fedor was a young wife and mother who wanted to go to college. She shared this dream with her “over the fence” neighbor, Shirley Gordon, who was an administrator at a new community college. “I wanted to go to school, and Highline Community College was just being started at a local high school. Shirley encouraged me to apply and I got in,” Dr. Fedor remembers.
After attending Highline, Dr. Fedor completed her baccalaureate degree at the University of Washington, and became a high school teacher. “I planned to dedicate my professional life to Catholic high school education,” she said – but fate, in the form of her neighbor, intervened again.
“Shirley, who had become a dean at Highline, encouraged me to get my master’s, because she wanted to hire me. So I did.”
“One day Shirley asked me to get in contact with Phi Theta Kappa, about becoming the advisor at Highline. I called the national office, and had a wonderful phone conversation with a very enthusiastic lady – Margaret Mosal. She invited me to New York State for the most wonderful Honors Institute in the world.”
Just as community colleges are a uniquely American institution, the Honors Institute is unique to Phi Theta Kappa, Dr. Fedor said. For her, the Honors Institute was “love at first sight – the first Institute was an experience of a lifetime for me.”
In 1970, when Dr. Fedor attended her first Honors Institute, the event was relatively new. Established in 1968 to celebrate Phi Theta Kappa’s 50th anniversary, the Institute was the brainchild of Dr. Mosal and then Phi Theta Kappa Associate Director Gayle Wyatt. The Honors Institute, known as the “ultimate honor programming experience,” celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2008.
Dr. Fedor returned to Highline, became advisor to the Pi Sigma Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, and settled down to create an honors program that became a Societywide model for excellence. During her 20-plus years as an advisor, the Pi Sigma Chapter and Dr. Fedor were recognized annually for program excellence, especially in honors education. Cheering from the sidelines was Dr. Shirley Gordon, who had become Highline Community College President.
As an educator, Dr. Fedor was introduced to many organizations, but chose to devote her time and energies to Phi Theta Kappa.
As a chapter advisor, she saw firsthand the difference Phi Theta Kappa made in the lives of members. “When I think about opportunities in Phi Theta Kappa I keep coming back to the Honors Institutes. I think our speakers contributed to international understanding long before we had the internet and email to bring us closer together. Having international speakers come and talk was an incredible chance for our students to learn.”
Joan and Bob Fedor’s generous gift to endow an Honors Institute lecture is “nothing to compare with what I have gained from Phi Theta Kappa,” she said. “My husband was glad to give this – he knew what Phi Theta Kappa meant to me.”
The years have given Dr. Fedor a kaleidoscope of Phi Theta Kappa experiences. “What stands out the most from so many would have to be that first Honors Institute, when I realized just what Phi Theta Kappa was all about. And of course Rod’s invitation to remain on the Honors Program Committee, which meant that even though I had retired, I did not have to retire from Phi Theta Kappa,” she said.
“I don’t want to think about what my life would have been like without Phi Theta Kappa.”
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