Liberal Studies Commons^™

Gadgets And Gizmos, Seth Blanton

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Life in honors largely took place in a lounge on the first floor of the Liberal Arts building. Students congregated after, before, and in-between classes, discussing life, school, love, food, and all things in between. Discussions veered into decisions—courses, graduate school, love, and food. That is to say, through its organization, location, and design honors, examined life fastidiously and fatuously. Honors provided community and guidance. It also introduced us to ideas, books, movies, and people that otherwise would have been absent from our educations. Many of the books have faded from my memory, but the people and ideas continue to …

The Honors Connection: Openness And Empathy, Samantha Bronow

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

I entered college as a performing arts major and graduated with a degree in economics, a rather seismic shift at face value. College is a time of great exploration and soul-searching, and while such freedom is exhilarating, it is often very stressful to sort through constantly evolving goals. Despite transitioning through three different majors, I was able to graduate in four years as planned, largely thanks …

Forging An Honors Bond, Taylor C. Bybee

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Standing in line at the local fire station, my wife and I were waiting for our COVID-19 inoculations. The firefighters had been commissioned to administer the vaccines. Health department workers were examining paperwork, and volunteers were guiding patrons through the line. Looking around while trying to manage our children, I noticed a volunteer with a familiarlooking face, half-concealed by a mask. I had not seen the …

The Secret Of Honors Education: Driven By Discourse, Depth Of Disciplines, And Dedication To Diversity, Merry Benner Chiu

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

The Dean of my undergraduate Honors College disguised a very clever secret right in plain sight of his students. What we thought to be a well-rounded, four-year education was, in reality, so much more: a carefully cultivated undergraduate program that propelled us into an engaged adulthood driven by meaningful discourse, appreciation for a breadth and depth of disciplines, and an unyielding dedication to diversity. My honors …

Citadels Of Interdisciplinarity, Colin Christensen

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

As the demands of academic research galvanize disciplinary silos and market forces pressure students into increasingly specialized courses of study, honors education stands as one of the few remaining citadels of interdisciplinarity on America’s college campuses. My experience as an undergraduate honors student was characterized by a community of deep intellectual richness committed to student-driven, collaborative, integrative and critical inquiry. Honors constellates diversity in tradition and …

The Spark Of Reimagination, Corey D. Clawson

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Each experience was a thrilling opportunity to reimagine the world. The honors program at Utah State University presented my peers and me with challenge after challenge to envision the world through new eyes. Journalism historian Mike Sweeney offered perspectives for understanding global conflict and everyday communication in his Propaganda, Persuasion, and Censorship honors seminar, offered in 2003 as the U.S. was attempting to justify the decision …

Southern Appalachian, Sean Collier

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

I am a Southern Appalachian, first-generation college student from a small town—a place where folks are sometimes considered backwards, ignorant, and or even a bit “simple minded.” Coming to Emory & Henry College, I was certainly among the lesserprepared students in my honors cohort. I did not attend a Governor’s School, I did not have lessons with local college professors, and I did not meet the …

Me, Snoop, And Rich Old People, Or Intersectionality And Its Impending Effect On Paradigm Shaping And Life Trajectory, Llewellyn Cooper

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

T he UAB HP transformed me. It really started with an article—two articles—in a Vibe Magazine I was given by the HP Director. The September 1993 issue included two people— one of whom I did not previously know existed—who would change my paradigm. As a 21-year-old from North Birmingham, I was all about Snoop Dogg, 2Pac, and hard-core hip hop, and that article about the old …

Finding Community, Support, And The Importance Of Detours, Grace Anne Cunningham

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

In the early weeks of my undergraduate experience, I sat down with the Director of the Honors Program and told him I wanted to go to Oxford for graduate school, or an Ivy at the very least; then asked what I’d need on my résumé to get there. I was an ambitious but naïve 18-year-old. Fortunately, I found my way to the Honors Program at Texas …

Honor In Failure, Mark Donovan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

I checked the spreadsheet in front of me again, frantically hoping by some grace or magic that the fifth entry I reviewed would somehow erase my mistake. I couldn’t have possibly scrambled more than 1,000 application records, could I have? I poured through the files I had meticulously, even reverently saved over the last weeks. I searched, each click more desperate than its sister before it. …

There And Back Again, Jennifer N. Dulin

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

I am fortunate to have experienced the Texas A&M University Honors Program in two unique capacities: first as an undergraduate (2001–2005) and now as a faculty member (2017–present). Both experiences have been tremendously enriching in different ways. As an undergraduate, my experience in the Texas A&M Honors Programs nurtured my growth as a scholar, encouraged independent thought, and allowed me to gain experience in scientific research, …

Interdisciplinary Survival, Paul Ewing

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

In 1966, the University of Toledo Honors Program encouraged students to create their college curriculum. As a result, I created an interdisciplinary major in Russian studies. When confronted with different disciplinary approaches, goals, and values, students must think outside the boxes. Interdisciplinary studies generate critical thinking, flexibility, and creativity. Russian language, history, and political science raised questions about the relationships between culture, political theory, and historical …

Perfectionism And Honors Students: Cautious Good News, Jennifer S. Feenstra

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Psychoeducational research differentiates adaptive and maladaptive forms of perfectionism. This study considers personal-strivings and evaluativeconcerns perfectionism in relation to procrastination, stress, anxiety, well-being, and academic achievement among students (n = 147) of all undergraduate levels and across disciplines, with honors representing a little over a quarter. While results show evaluative-concerns perfectionism to positively correlate to stress and anxiety and negatively correlate with well-being, no correlation is found relative to procrastination and GPA. Conversely, personal-strivings perfectionism negatively correlates with procrastination and stress and positively with well-being and GPA. Honors students show a higher degree of the more adaptive personal-strivings perfectionism than …

From Jersey Shore To Ap Lit Teacher, Ashley Gerstle

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

My undergraduate experience was mundane, average, and boring. I excelled academically, a little too easily. I could skip the readings and ace my classes half asleep. It was a normal experience for me to write entire papers an hour before the due date and receive As. In one instance a professor publicly recognized me as having written the best paper in the entire class. I beamed …

Non Magis Sed Melior, “Not More, But Better”, Teri Grieb

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

The year was 1989. I had moved from a rural community in Michigan to South Carolina to attend Columbia College, a private, liberal-arts women’s college. The culture shock and adjustment were equal parts exhilarating and unnerving. I was welcomed by the warm, Southern charm of campus and was nurtured, personally and academically, by the close-knit community of the honors program. I had a rich college experience …

Expensive Mistakes: How Hitting Career Rock Bottom Showed Me What I Really Learned In Honors, Pepper Hayes

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Twenty years ago, I was an honors student with a very well-rounded course schedule and a résumé full of interesting extracurricular activities and leadership experiences. Unfortunately, for me, “well-rounded” translated to “directionless,” and I had no idea what to do after graduation. That’s when I made my first mistake: I crowdsourced the decision. I asked nearly everyone I knew for their opinion and the feedback was …

Why Honors Matters, James A. Keller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

In 2022, I turned half-a-century old. I have a loving family, good friends, and a really interesting career at a large law firm. By any measure, I am a lucky man. So how, over these fifty years, did I get here? Supportive parents, who were also public-school educators, are unquestionably the foundation. A good law school education? No doubt, that also helped. But time and again, …

Refusing Erasure: Nugent, Fire!!, And The Legacies Of Queer Harlem, Samantha King-Shaw

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This study examines the work of two queer Black artists, Richard Bruce Nugent and Marlon Riggs, within the historical and sociopolitical contexts of the Harlem Renaissance and cultural backlash of the late 1980s. Through comparative textual analyses, the author explores fluctuations of Black queer cultural production during the twentieth century and considers how each artist subverts dominant racist and heteronormative ideologies in mainstream society and Black communities. Engaging tools from the fields of critical race theory, queer theory, critical legal studies, and cultural representations of race and sexuality, the author analyzes “Smoke, Lilies and Jade” and Tongues Untied structurally and …

Dutch Honors Alumni Looking Back On The Impact Of Honors On Their Personal And Professional Development, Arie Kool, Elanor Kamans, Marca V.C. Wolfensberger

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This study considers the value of honors programs by investigating alumni perspectives of learning goals relative to personal and professional development. Using a longitudinal cross-sectional survey instrument, authors track participants (n = 79) for four consecutive years (2017–2021). Qualitative measures indicate the importance of freedom to develop within the curricula, stimulus to experiment and shape one’s own path, and insights and inspirations resultant of rigorous study. Respondents identify certain learning goals (i.e., ability to look beyond boundaries and show initiative and guts) to be critical in their personal and professional development but question the role of the honors certificate in …

Skill And Community Development Through An Honors Education, Samantha Koprowski

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s (2022) collection of essays about the value of honors to its graduates (1967–2019), the author reflects on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

My enrollment at William Paterson University was mainly informed by financial considerations; however, the value of the honors education I received in terms of skill development and educational outcomes has proven to be just as beneficial. Within the academic setting, I learned how to successfully collaborate with peers in the first-year honors cluster of general education courses, to cultivate a desire and curiosity to learn both …