Sam Barlow joined the National Art Honor Society, or NAHS this year. This creates many opportunities for our art students to expand their art portfolios and become more involved in their community through art. NAHS is a high school honor society specifically for art students. Its purpose is to provide art students who exhibit outstanding scholarship in the visual arts with national recognition and opportunities, as well as for their teachers. Within Barlow, its purpose is to promote students’ art positively.
To join NAHS, students must have taken an art class and received at least a B in it, as well as have an overall GPA of 2.5. NAHS members are also required to do 5 hours of art-related volunteer work per semester. This volunteer work currently includes creating posters for teachers, and members have already decorated the school doors and windows to create a winter scene. Students are also required to attend NAHS meetings, which currently happen once a month on the first Wednesday of the month. In January, members will vote on meeting frequency and times for the second semester. During first semester, there was no fee to join NAHS, as it was a new experience for members and Mrs. Gibson. Starting second semester, members will be required to pay the $5 NAHS fee.
Mrs. Gibson, the art teacher, says her goal for NAHS this year is to provide art students with more avenues to gain recognition for their work. She said, “We have a lot of really awesome art students who wanted another avenue to learn and do more art things.” While Barlow is extremely fortunate to have the art gallery in the hallways as a wonderful avenue for art students, it is still important to provide students with more opportunities. NAHS is a great opportunity that provides members with more avenues and leadership opportunities. Leadership opportunities come from being an officer, like Chloe Wagner, Fry Scroggs, and Maggie Zielinski, or by teaching an art lesson to art peers. Last year, students brought NAHS to Mrs. Gibson to join, showing how enthusiastic our art students are about joining NAHS for the first year.
