Education Commons^™

Shunning Complaint: A Call For Solutions From The Honors Community, Richard Badenhausen

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While members of the academy are particularly adept at complaining and poking holes in most proposals that cross their paths, we are less comfortable with offering solutions. This essay asks members of the honors community to consider some of the major challenges facing honors education today and propose solutions that might be adapted on a variety of campuses. Rather than asking respondents to take up rather straightforward issues that commonly face honors program and colleges, this piece urges readers to dig into more intractable problems like access, mental health, innovation, and the position of honors on campus.

The Case For Heterodoxy, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Despite being originally designed to educate men, honors programs are not very attractive to male students in general and to male students of color in particular. Because access to honors programs is limited by a credentialing process that favors white men, many members of minority groups find them inhospitable and are significantly underrepresented. This essay suggests three concepts to be used to reimagine honors programs to be more welcoming of minority students: radical hospitality, asset-based thinking, and heterodoxy.

Honors And The Curiouser University, Kristine A. Miller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

With roots in the Latin cūriōus, meaning “full of care or pains, careful, assiduous, inquisitive,” the word “curiosity,” like this forum on “Current Challenges to Honors Education,” grows out of both the pain and promise of critical inquiry. This essay takes up the challenge of moving honors from the periphery to the heart of higher education by daring to redefine the college or university itself. Honors fosters—and even demands—the curiosity to look beyond the comforting confines of one’s own mind. Facilitating the conversation, collaboration, and innovation that shape a curious university, honors offers students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community …

No Complaints, Please: Just Time To Rethink Honors, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This article responds to a lead essay by Richard Badenhausen posing current challenges to honors education and requesting solutions. Frost argues that the place of honors in our undergraduate curriculum needs to be rethought in part because general education core requirements are shrinking; accordingly, the NCHC Basic Characteristics noting honors viability by the number of honors credit hours a student takes need to be revised as well. As one of the few nimble academic units in the university, the honors program or college has been, is, and can continue to be a key site for innovation on our campuses.

Preparing Fmhc Students For Life After Graduation, Emily Ruth Driscoll, Emma Kolar, Hannah Rojas, Carly Sutkewicz, Sam Ventocilla, Nathan Wagner

Undergraduate Research

The pages you have before you are a complete chronicle of our journey through the design thinking process. We were asked a pressing question: “how can Honors students better prepare for life after graduation?” This question launched a four-month journey, for which we were given the map of the design thinking process. This map was unique in that it told us what terrain we would be navigating, but not how to get to the next destination. Not directly, anyway. Every section of terrain had many paths, and plenty of open space to forge our own.

From the rolling moors of …

Emphasizing The Honors College Experience, Kara Rickenberg, Kylee Scholten, Matt Smit, Claire Thomassen, Monica Van Til, Rio Weikum

Undergraduate Research

Thank you for taking the time to engage with our Innovation Portfolio chronicling our design challenge of improving the post-graduation preparation of Frederik Meijer Honors College students. This past semester we have conducted intensive research and utilized the design thinking process to arrive at a definitive solution. This portfolio presents the process that our team learned and implemented, and visualizes our innovations and prototype concepts. We know our solution will improve the readiness of Honors students for life after graduation, as well as continue to enhance the awesome FHMC experience! Thank you again for your interest in our design challenge.

Innovating To Help The Students Of Fmhc Transition Into The Real World, Bee Fink, Leo Brisita, Kate Hubbard, Alex Broek, Kelsey Bredeweg, Reilly Olson

Undergraduate Research

We appreciate your interest in our team, and all of the work we put into creating a solution for the future leaders of the Frederik Meijer Honors College. Over the span of four months, we conducted hours of research, interviews, team collaboration, thinking critically, prototyping, and designing. Through this portfolio, an overview will be provided of how we developed our final innovation to assist students of the Frederik Meijer Honors College to comfortably transition to life after Grand Valley.

Trailblazers: Innovation Portfolio, Keegan Barth, Samantha Frankhouse, Taylor Keppel, Andrew Marckini, Melaura Rice

Undergraduate Research

We are so grateful for your interest in our proposal of redesigning the Frederick Meijer Honors College Curriculum. This journey spanned four months and included countless hours of researching, interviewing, collaborating, ideating, and prototyping. Our portfolio will navigate through the process to provide an in-depth overview of our insights and show how we used Design Thinking to create our final prototype concept. We would like to express our sincere gratitude toward our professor Linda Chamberlain, fellow classmates, collaborators, and stakeholders who were involved in the process. All of these individuals guided us through the Design Thinking process and allowed us …

Building Bridges, Benjamin R. Cousino, Nathan P. Gillespie, Shelby Miller, Sue Pete, Elizabeth A. Shepherd, Philip M. Sheridan

Undergraduate Research

Throughout the winter 2017 semester our interdisciplinary team utilized the design thinking process to redefine the purpose of the Grand Valley Holland Meijer Campus. As a process for collaborative and creative problem solving on complex challenges, Design Thinking requires empathizing with community stakeholders, iterative integration of insights, ideation, prototyping and testing. Through this process we have identified creative possibilities designed to support and enhance both Grand Valley State University’s Holland campus as well as the community of Holland. Our final prototype optimizes engagement with the campus. While an incredibly large and challenging undertaking, this experience confirmed that the design thinking …

Multi-Generational Design Thinking School, Kyle Mcdowell, Payton Mills, Joseph Seder, Nichole Sloan, Hannah Fernando, Andrew Hereza

Undergraduate Research

Every great story is full of interesting characters, and one of those characters is always the hero. In each and every story, that hero wants something. Our hero is the GVSU Meijer Campus in Holland, Michigan, but as it is now, that hero is weak, lonely, and not flourishing. Our hero wants to be relevant for the Holland community, but it needs to overcome underutilization to get there. However, what makes a story great is not the resolution; rather, it is the transformation of the hero. Join us in our journey as we design thinkers work to transform the identity …

Restore Innovation Portfolio Team Four, Tyler P. Alcantara, Luciano M. Delorenzo, Kayla R. Dora, Laura C. Sample, Hannah M. Swanson

Undergraduate Research

No abstract provided.

Faculty Share Views On Importance Of Creative Thinking In The Workplace, June-Ann Greeley

June-Ann Greeley

University Commons was filled with students eager to gain insights from “Creativity In The Workplace: Creative & Innovative Thinking from the Classroom to the Boardroom.” The program was presented by SHU faculty who emphasized the importance of creative and innovative thinking abilities that are developed through the university’s liberal arts programs and are key to workplace success.

Faculty Share Views On Importance Of Creative Thinking In The Workplace, James Castonguay

James Castonguay

University Commons was filled with students eager to gain insights from “Creativity In The Workplace: Creative & Innovative Thinking from the Classroom to the Boardroom.” The program was presented by SHU faculty who emphasized the importance of creative and innovative thinking abilities that are developed through the university’s liberal arts programs and are key to workplace success.

Faculty Share Views On Importance Of Creative Thinking In The Workplace, Anca C. Micu

Anca C. Micu

University Commons was filled with students eager to gain insights from “Creativity In The Workplace: Creative & Innovative Thinking from the Classroom to the Boardroom.” The program was presented by SHU faculty who emphasized the importance of creative and innovative thinking abilities that are developed through the university’s liberal arts programs and are key to workplace success.

Transformative Possibilities: Liberal Education At Grand Valley State University, Judy D. Whipps

Other Faculty Publications

The readings in the book Reflect, Connect, Engage (2013) offer both an invitation and a challenge as they open the reader to possibilities of transformation. By engaging these voices you are welcomed into a community of learners that includes all of us at Grand Valley, students, faculty and staff, all of us learning from each other as well as from work of great thinkers and activists. GVSU is founded on the practice of liberal education -- an education that holds the possibility of permanently enriching our lives, assisting in the development of the capacities and skills necessary for our vocations, …