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The Value Of Honors: Defined By Quality And Cost, Christopher Kotschevar, Nicholas Arens

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 authors reflect on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

Value, simply defined, is quality divided by cost. Cost, whether it be in terms of money, time, energy, or another expense, is relatively easy to measure. Conversely, quality proves challenging to measure, regardless of the context. Typically, measuring quality is pursued with the purpose of quality improvement, such as in manufacturing or healthcare, and/or for the purpose of comparison, as demonstrated by the ever-growing industry of …

Rooted In Relations: Honors And A Relation-Based Approach To Learning, Emma Labovitz

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.

After graduating with my bachelors, I took a 6-month temporary job in Nepal working with a non-profit doing development research. While there I worked with a cohort of international and Nepali interns, and my fellow international expatriates continuously remarked on the ways life in Nepal bleeds into the streets. They pointed out that in much of the Western world, life is confined to our living rooms …

From Honors Student To Honors Coordinator, Kathryn M. Macdonald

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.

Every time I begin a new semester, I often think about how my honors professors began their classes. There was a palpable excitement in their voices as they discussed how we would explore the given subject through a variety of lenses, uncovering nontraditional perspectives and allowing the conversation to flow freely. I remember the conversations continuing among my fellow honors students long after the class ended. …

Honor-Ing Parenthood, John Major

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 I write this essay, I am a few weeks from turning sixty. The sudden appearance of this moment on my horizon has taken me by surprise, to say the least. I ask myself where all that time went, oscillating between disbelief that I’m neither that younger version of myself that lives on in my imagination nor the version of myself that I’d dreamed I might …

Honors Lessons Learned Outside The Classroom, Chloe Salome Margulis

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 an immature high schooler, I thought Honors would be a stamp of excellence on my résumé. However, I graduated Honors with a far more valuable gift—an education outside the classroom full of social and intellectual reflection and growth. At my high school, self-worth and popularity hinged on which Ivy League you got into, so my eyes were never set on LIU Post Honors. However, I …

More Than An Academic Challenge—A Sense Of Belonging, Mary Anne Matos

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.

Johnson County Community College (JCCC) has a mission to inspire learning to transform lives and strengthen communities. And that is exactly what it did for me. My life was transformed not only by attending JCCC but by being part of the Honors Program. I moved to Kansas from Brazil in 2011. I already had a bachelor’s degree, so my intention was not to go back to …

How Honors Hoisted Me To Dc And A Public Health Career, Emily Mcandrew

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 May of 2021, I moved to Washington, D.C. It was the middle of the pandemic. I had only been to D.C. once for a National Collegiate Honors Council conference. My partner was graduating law school and had just received a highly esteemed post-graduate fellowship in North Carolina. I was doing well in my global health job at Duke University. It would have been easy to …

Supportive And Impactful Honors Education, Sara Mccane-Bowling

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.

Most honors students arrive at college as academically motivated highachievers. Rigorous honors coursework no doubt serves to sharpen these students’ skills even further. But is it the rigor of coursework that transforms honors students into change agents in society? My experience in honors is that academic rigor alone is hardly the most important determinant of the long-term differences that honors education makes in the lives of …

A Safe Place To Explore: The Value Of Honors In Higher Education, Mary Beth Messner

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.

Like many students who join Honors programs in college, I was first introduced to honors classes in high school. As someone who was identified as “gifted and talented” in elementary and high school, I was regularly at the top of my class academically as a child and adolescent. This earned me favor with both my parents and teachers, but it often alienated me from my peers. …

An Honors Lifetime Love Of Learning, Eric W. Miller

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 t was the welcome letter from the Honors program director that drew me in. I was hesitant to attend a large school, and West Virginia University was a big place. Even though being a Mountaineer ran deep in my family, I was drawn to smaller settings, with a desire for a more intimate education and close colleagues to converse and grow with. I wanted to …

Honorary Family, Joshua Mulanax, Brandi Mulanax

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 authors reflect on the personal and professional impacts of the honors experience.

It’s a crisp, cool morning as the campus begins to show signs of life. Above the tittering birds and soft breeze, laughter can be heard echoing across the grounds. The sounds are coming from the self-proclaimed “nerd herd,” an eclectic group of honors students shuffling along the sidewalk to their morning classes. The conversation ranges from serious discussions regarding an upcoming biology test to light teasing …

Question, Discover, Apply, Disseminate: My Journey From Honors Student To Educator, Heather Ness-Maddox

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 first honors course was Introduction to Psychology. I begrudgingly enrolled to fill an area. In high school, my psychology course was boring, but the honors course environment allowed me to read and critique research studies, analyzing the methods, the findings, the meaning behind the research. In high school I felt confident psychology would not be my major, but after the honors course I felt a …

Staying Connected, Jonna Nunez

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’m submitting this assignment on its due date because I was unsure how far my writing has declined since college. I was afraid that preparing technical accounting memos all day had made me forget how to write about a realworld, non-seemingly-made-up topic rather than the five steps of revenue recognition or acquisition accounting. One thing is for certain—I still know how to write an intro and …

Valuing Diversity, Michelle Panuccio

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 1998, when I entered Youngstown State, I had never heard of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), which is now considered to be one of the most critical investments a company can make in building toward success. Just because the focus had not come yet, though, does not mean that the principles were not impacting people’s lives, including mine. At the core, an honors program exists …

Achieving Excellence Through Experiential Learning, Eli Pemberton

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.

Coming from the small island of Trinidad, I had never heard of nor participated in experiential learning until I became a member of the honors program. Being given the opportunities to engage in experiential learning helped me further my understanding of many subject areas outside of my hospitality management major. Of course, honors also allowed me to thrive in an academically rigorous environment, but the value …

Reflecting On Community: A Vision For The Future, Tambria Schroeder

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.

Being asked to reflect on the values I gained from my honors experience has been such a privilege, and I hope that my words can serve as a reminder to all who read them that we should never underestimate the power of reflecting on our practice—whatever that may be, inside of academia or otherwise. Having completed my undergraduate career five years ago and wanting to be …

Finding My Better Self And The Strength To Dream: The Impact Of The Honors Experience, Lia M. Shore

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.

H onor. It flows throughout the thread of life and shapes a path at every stage. It serves as an inner compass that navigates through growth and identity to find the destination of a better self. My experience as an honors student represents an important part of this journey and established a foundation of intrinsic values that continue to guide me through my professional and personal …

Interdisciplinary Education Equips People To Face Unique Challenges, Claire Guthrie Stasiewicz

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.

Earning an undergraduate degree feels decidedly common today. 42% of Americans hold an undergraduate degree, and about 62% of all high school graduates attend some college (U.S. Census Bureau, 2021). What feels less common, however, is an education through an Honors College. As one of the first graduates to earn an Honors Interdisciplinary Liberal Arts degree from the University of New Mexico (something done by only …

The 2021 Nchc Founders Award: Samuel Schuman, Bernice Braid

Honors in Practice Online Archive

Samuel Schuman (Beginning in Honors) is the 2021 recipient of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s Founders Award, recognized for his outstanding contributions to both the NCHC and to the professional and scholarly practices of honors education.

A Sense Of Belonging, Suketu P. Bhavsar

Honors in Practice Online Archive

National Collegiate Honors Council President delivers his address at the NCHC’s 2021 conference, describing that, despite the privileges he has chosen and enjoyed, expressions of otherness have led to feelings of estrangement. Considering the question of how to face this challenge in honors, the author emphasizes the imperative of creating a sense of belonging for every student.