Membership Certificate Requests

Once interested students' eligibility has been verified by the chapter advisor and their membership fees arranged for, their names must be sent to the National Office on the Membership Request /Merchandise Order Form. The National Office then prepares and sends back a membership certificate for each new member and enters the member's name and initiation date in the permanent records it keeps for each chapter. Chapters use these forms to order graduation medallions and honor cords as well.

It's important to remember that no one is a member of the Pi Sigma Alpha honor society unless he or she has been identified to the National Office and the national membership fee has been paid to the National Office. Chapter officers should take the utmost care in following this procedure to insure that every student who has accepted membership in PSA and who has paid a fee to the local chapter is in fact enrolled in the honor society.

View and/or download the Membership Request Form:

The Membership Request Form is self-explanatory, but a few things bear reinforcing:

  1. The printed text of the membership certificate includes the member's initiation date, so this date must be included on the form. Submitting forms with the date line left blank delays the processing of the certificates until the date can be verified.
  2. Please check the spelling of names carefully because there is a $5.00 charge for reprinting a certificate. Also, students should think twice about using nicknames. The certificate is a formal-looking document, suitable for framing, and a full given name will generally look more appropriate on it than a nickname, especially after a few years' time. So "Cynthia," not "Cindy," and "Michael," not "Mike."
  3. Handwritten forms, no matter how neatly done, are never as clear as machine-printed ones. You may download a Microsoft Word version of the Form to your hard drive, key in the names and other information, print the form and send it to us. If you must fill in the form by hand, please use block capitals so as to avoid the possibility that a name will be misread by the National Office.
  4. Please be sure to include the full mailing address, with zipcode, to which the certificates should be returned, and a phone number so that any question or problem with the form may be resolved quickly. 
  5. The form must be accompanied by a single check or money order for the initiation fees for the whole group, not multiple individual checks. The National Office will return submissions with multiple checks. The National Office will likewise not accept batches of forms with a single name on each form accompanied by its own separate check. The National Office will accommodate strays and stragglers who were left off a chapter's main list for some reason and must be sent in a later mailing.

    This form is now the only form for ordering Medallions and Honor Cords.  The payment for these may be included in the same check as the membership fees, or it may be in a separate check covering just the merchandise. In any case, no individual student checks are accepted.

If the political science department sends the initiation list to the university accounting department where a check is to be written, the accounting department should be reminded that the list itself must be sent to the National Office along with the check!

Certificate Turnaround Time

Although the certificates are printed as soon as possible after the request forms come in, it may take up to three weeks before the chapter receives the certificates back because the National Office is staffed only half-time and the mail is picked up only twice per week. Also, since most of the chapters have at least one of their initiation ceremonies during the spring semester, the National Office is especially busy at that time.

Requests are filled in the order that they are received, provided the forms are complete and accompanied by the proper fees in a single check or money order. A list faxed to the National Office in advance of payment of the fees will not be processed until the check is received. A chapter can expedite the return of its certificates by sending a prepaid rapid delivery label (FedEx, or example) along with the request to reduce any delay in the certificates' return trip through the mail.

Even during the spring, however, a chapter should receive certificates within three weeks from the day the National Office gets its request.  Any delay beyond three weeks should be investigated as it may mean that either the request or the certificates were lost in the mail.

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