On the table. Not decided.
Organizations the research subcommittee is aware of and evaluating. Nothing on this page is a selected project or an agreed partnership.
Read this first. Honors in Action requires that research drives action, not the other way around. Our subcommittee has not selected a theme or a research question yet, so it has not selected an action project or a collaborator either. This page lists what’s on the table so the process stays visible — not what’s been decided.
Flash Forward Foundation
Sree Kokkonda, who is organizing this chapter’s reactivation and pursuing its Vice President role, also serves as Vice President of Flash Forward Foundation. This organization is on the list because a member of our organizing team has a leadership role in it, and that should be weighed accordingly by anyone assessing whether it belongs in a chapter project.
Flash Forward Foundation is a nonprofit that builds and ships solar flashlights to communities with limited access to reliable electricity, and runs student workshops around that work. It has shipped units internationally and has an existing volunteer base and curriculum.
Status: one option among others, under evaluation by the research subcommittee. It has not been chosen as the chapter’s Honors in Action project or its College Project, and no agreement of any kind exists between it and this chapter.
If the subcommittee’s research does eventually point toward energy access and this collaboration is selected, we will state plainly who supplies what — materials, logistics, and curriculum from Flash Forward Foundation; volunteer labor, campus outreach, and fundraising support from chapter members. That would be a collaboration between a student chapter and a nonprofit. It would not be a partnership between Bellevue College and Flash Forward Foundation, and it would not be described as one.
How a collaborator actually gets chosen
- The subcommittee selects one theme from this year’s Honors Study Topic.
- It develops a research question and investigates credible sources with varied viewpoints.
- It draws conclusions from that research.
- It identifies a real local problem those conclusions point to.
- Then, and only then, it identifies who to work with on addressing it.
An organization appearing on this page does not skip any of those steps. Follow the research as it develops.
What the subcommittee weighs
When the research does eventually point toward an action, these are the criteria a collaborator gets assessed against. Publishing them in advance is the point — it makes it harder for us to rationalise a convenient answer later.
- Does the research point here?
- The single disqualifying question. A collaboration that does not follow from the chapter’s own research conclusions does not belong in the project, however good it is.
- Is the need local and evidenced?
- Honors in Action expects findings to manifest locally. We need to show the problem exists here, with evidence, not assert it.
- Can members do meaningful work?
- If the chapter’s contribution amounts to showing up for a photograph, it is not a service project.
- Is the impact measurable?
- A third of the Hallmark rubric is impact, assessed qualitatively and quantitatively. A collaboration that cannot be measured cannot be reported.
- Is there a conflict to disclose?
- If anyone on the organizing team has a role in the organization, it gets stated plainly wherever the collaboration appears — as it is above.
What we can realistically offer
We would rather be accurate about our capacity than promise a volunteer corps we do not yet have. Right now the chapter has no certified members, because it has no appointed advisor.
What a reactivated chapter can offer is student volunteer labour, campus outreach at Bellevue College, fundraising support, and a research team that will document outcomes properly because the Society requires it.
Get on the list
Write to us and we will add your organization to what the research subcommittee considers once it has a theme and a research question. We cannot promise more than consideration, and we will not.