Educational Methods Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Is Honors Worth The Extra Effort?, Quimby Wechter

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.

When many students think about participating in an honors program, their minds immediately rush to harder courses and more work. Frankly, many brilliant classmates did not pursue the honors program because they did not see the benefit. They failed to recognize the implicit value of pursuing a program that is simultaneously challenging and nurturing. Although I did not notice it each day, the honors program had …

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 …

Connections, Andy Walker

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 went off to college confident that I knew what I needed from higher education and just how I would put it to use. I had not yet learned of hubris and was afflicted by the arrogance of youth, born of ignorance. Fortunately for me, grown-ups had designed the required curriculum that, along with a scholarship, was part of my honors program, and I was blessed …

“Best Of Both Worlds”: Alumni Perspectives On Honors And The Liberal Arts, Angela King Taylor, Kelsey Daniels, Molly Knowlton

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This study explores the extent to which skills acquired through liberal arts curricula facilitate immediate post-graduate employment of honors college alumni. Using qualitative methods and semi-structured interviews (n = 16), authors examine the honors college experience and the attainment of skills through the lens of graduates (2017–2020) at a large research institution. Results indicate that while honors alumni identify certain skills that helped them realize initial employment, they were often unable to translate and apply these skills in professional workplaces, particularly nonacademic ones. Data further suggest that liberal arts skills (communication, research competence, critical reasoning, intercultural competence, interdisciplinary inquiry, disciplinary …

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 …

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 …

Finding My Place, Daphne Watson

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 of us enters higher education with our own life experiences and beliefs. As a Black woman over forty, I was not your typical college sophomore. Returning to college full-time filled me with uncertainty, so unlike when I first began undergrad more than twenty years prior. A lifetime of highs and lows, failures and successes cultivated a certain fearlessness, yet I was unsure of where I …

Who Owns Honors? Whoever Defines It—And Maybe, Who Pays For It, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author examines an evolving landscape for professional honors programs at her institution to consider the inherent relationship between the ownership of honors and its varying definitions as new programs are proposed and launched. Deciding what counts as honors is an exercise not just in classification but also in economics, given the financial benefits that often accompany what is called “honors.”

Editor's Introduction (To Jnchc 23:2), Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This issue of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC) includes a Forum on “Honors Beyond the Liberal Arts.” The focus of the Forum, as established in the title as well as in its lead essay by K. Patrick Fazioli, is the desirability of outreach to professional schools by the NCHC and by honors educators generally. Although the essays reveal a shared and unambiguous consensus about what is meant by “professional schools,” they display considerable differences in what people mean by “the liberal arts.” While the standard dictionary definition of the liberal arts includes the sciences and social …