The Honors Program has officially been given Student Activity status Thursday Feb. 5 in order to gain an activity budget in the hopes of bringing more social benefits to the program.

The program’s director Adam Oldaker saw the opportunity to become a Student Activity as a natural process. While there is a definite fiscal reasoning behind the transition, he emphasized the idea of creating a closer community within the program.

An initiative was taken on Jan. 28 to elect officers for the program. Newly elected co-president Leigha Pastorik feels that already by making this small step the program is becoming a more communal experience. She hopes this new status will “bring a sense of community into a usually academic-only group and will help members feel less stressed.”

The program has already started planning social events for members as well as creating outreach events to better their surrounding communities. Oldaker and Pastorik both agree that by building the program it will enhance the ideas of their three pillars: community involvement, campus leadership, and experiential learning.

There is already a great deal of enthusiasm within the group, says Oldaker, and he hopes this change will create even more in order to better the IVCC campus.