Liberal Studies Commons^™

The Grizzly, November 5, 2020, Simra Mariam, Morgan Grabowski, Amy Litofsky, Ava Compagnoni, Layla Halterman, Rosalia Murphy

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Intruders & Campus Security • Trash Increases on Campus Due to COVID-19 • Kindness Isn't Cancelled • Ursinus College is Labeled Green! • Self-care: Check Your E-mails Only Twice a Day • Opinion: How to Increase Campus Safety • Safety Concerns Affect Students' Mental Health • Women's Soccer has Fun

The Grizzly, October 29, 2020, Simra Mariam, Gillian Mccomeskey, Layla Halterman, Sean Mcginley, Liam Reilly, Shelsea Deravil, Ava Compagnoni, Rosalia Murphy

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

COVID-19 Updates • Campus Visit Safety • Skate Culture at Ursinus • ALMA's Latin Night • Opinion: Studying to Learn vs. Studying for Memorization; Keep Your Dorm Room Clean! • Keeping Up With the Coaches • Cross Country's New Role

The Grizzly, October 22, 2020, Simra Mariam, Ava Compagnoni, Morgan Grabowski, Shelsea Deravil, Layla Halterman

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Tie-dye a Face Mask with U-Imagine • Radio Plays • RBG's Impact on Hillel • Daily Practice of Yoga • Opinion: Ursinus or Urscience?; Heteronormative Education is Not Inclusive • Ursinus' New Partnership with F45 • Patterson Misses Football

The Grizzly, October 15, 2020, Simra Mariam, Gillian Mccomeskey, Sean Mcginley, Layla Halterman, Claude Wolfer, Julia Paiano, Sage Best, Valerie Eichler, Rosalia Murphy, Ava Compagnoni

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

COVID-19 Updates • "Keep the Promise" Campaign • How Ursinus is Handling Flu Vaccines • Meet Ursinus' New Title IX Coordinator • The Ursinus College Chapel Program • Opinion: Sit-Down Dining in Upper Wismer Puts the Campus at Risk; Ursinus' Role in Racial Justice • How the Fitness Center Works Now • Volleyball's New "Norm"

The Grizzly, October 8, 2020, Simra Mariam, Ava Compagnoni, Sean Mcginley, Shelsea Deravil, Layla Halterman, Liam Reilly, Kevin Melton, Morgan Grabowski, Rosalia Murphy

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Smokestack Updates: Reaching the Top • Gilman and ACS Scholarships • "Ursinus Leads the Vote" for the Upcoming Election • The Real-Life "Energizer Bunny" • Opinion: Quarantine First-hand; The IDC is the Best Place to Study • Wellness Center Explains New Regulations • Field Hockey: COVID Style

The Grizzly, October 1, 2020, Simra Mariam, Gillian Mccomeskey, Kevin Melton, Layla Halterman, Shelsea Deravil, Julia Paiano, Rosalia Murphy, Ava Compagnoni

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

In Memoriam: Aidan Inteso '24 • Ursinus Receives National Ranking • Autumn at Ursinus • Ursinus Online: New Ways to Live Together • A Powerful Yet Stylish Weapon • Opinion: Online Learning Versus In-Tents Perspective; Ursinus Response to COVID-19 • Closeness of Teammates Under COVID-19 Guidelines • Back to Practice: COVID Style

The Grizzly, September 24, 2020, Simra Mariam, Sam Beckman, Claude Wolfer, Layla Halterman, Shelsea Deravil, Liam Reilly, Kevin Melton, Sean Mcginley

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus Celebrates the Commons Opening • A Not-so-Common Intellectual Experience • Strengthening Your Optimism Muscle • The Fringe Festival 2020 Goes Virtual • Opinion: All Students Should Have the Same CIE Experience; The Case for Pronouns • Pokemon Go Makes a Comeback • The New "Normal" for Ursinus College Athletics

Implicit Bias Training For Woke Faculty, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt pens a satirical memo from higher education administrators to faculty regarding implicit bias training.

This essay originally appeared as part of Conditionally Accepted, a career advice blog for Inside Higher Ed providing news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community.

The Body Of Honors: Certification As An Expression Of Disciplinary Power, Richard Badenhausen

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Using Michel Foucault’s writing on discipline and training, the author suggests that processes like certification ultimately serve as covert normalizing activities that run counter to the spirit and practice of honors education. The author argues for an open, fluid, generative approach to honors program review.

Honors In Practice (Theory): A Bourdieusian Perspective On The Professionalization Of Honors, K. Patrick Fazioli

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Patricia J . Smith’s essay on the professionalization of honors advances several original and provocative arguments that deserve serious consideration. Although Smith makes a plausible case that honors has fulfilled at least three of Theodore Caplow’s four stages of professionalization, a closer reading of this text reveals that the developments identified by Smith fail to satisfy the basic functions that each stage serves on the path toward professionalism. This essay argues that honors has little incentive to become a distinct profession because much of its highly skilled workforce enjoys the protection of occupational closure as college faculty and administrators. The …

A Different Kind Of Agitation, Jayda Coons

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Responding to Patricia J . Smith’s essay on the appropriateness of professionalizing honors education, the author argues that discussions of specialization and standardization across honors programs should be suspended until academia has sufficiently dealt with the endemic problem of undercompensated contingent labor. The author further suggests that, rather than invite increased administrative procedures, faculty and staff exercise the characteristics most often ascribed to honors education—flexibility, creativity, community-based problem-solving, interdisciplinarity, and collaboration—to reimagine current professional practices in honors and advocate more forcefully for fair, dignified labor.

Swan Song, Joan Digby

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Patricia J . Smith’s argument for professionalism based on Caplow’s outdated model is inappropriate for honors administration. The steps outlined are misleading, and the use of the perennially controversial Basic Characteristics as a prescription for professionalizing honors is historically inaccurate and has no place in framing the future of honors education, which needs to remain individual and idiosyncratic to institutions. Professionalization would move honors toward a business model that is antithetical to the spirit of honors.

The Current Status, Perceptions, And Impact Of Honors Program Review, Rebecca Rook

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) supports routine, systematic program review, research suggests that only about half of honors programs engage in some form of assessment. This study examines the current state of honors program evaluation by gauging honors administrators’ perceptions of program review and assessing the impact of the NCHC’s review process on those programs that have employed it. A census of all NCHC honors directors was taken using questionnaires. Fifteen percent (n = 121) completed the census, with results suggesting substantial increases (87–91%) in program assessment from 2011 and a majority of respondents (87%) describing the review …

The Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council: A Bibliometric Study, Emily Walshe

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This paper analyzes summative content and citation patterns in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (ISSN 1559-0151), a peer-reviewed, scholarly publication related to honors education, during its first 20 volumes of existence from 2000 to 2019. The bibliometric study consists of two parts: an analysis of articles and analysis of citations. Quantitative and qualitative measures are used to examine article types, authorship patterns, cited references, and coverage of core subjects. Results indicate 522 articles with an annual output average of 26 .1. Annual input averages 37 .4 authors, featuring 492 unique authors who represent 248 unique institutions and …

Editor’S Introduction, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The topic of this issue’s Forum, “The Professionalization of Honors,” has a history in the National Collegiate Honors Council that probably goes back to its origins and that has evoked turbulent controversy within the past three or four decades. In the mid-1990s, the proposal to establish a document titled “The Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program” arose from a perceived vagueness about the meaning of “honors education .” Proponents of the document claimed that they were simply trying to create clarity out of chaos in defining the profession of honors while opponents feared the prospect of standardization. Heated …

Honors, Professionalism, And Teaching And Learning: A Response To Certification, John Zubizarreta

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay responds to an argument for certification based on a particular sociological theory of professionalization. The case for certification rests on the supposition that honors has evolved from a nascent educational movement focused on distinct teaching and learning approaches for high-ability students to one that is now ready to professionalize in ways that require more specialization, organizational oversight, systematic evaluation, and exclusive credentialing through certification. The author suggests that honors is already a full-fledged professional endeavor, recognizing that the core emphasis on teaching and learning in honors is a genuinely professional endeavor when performed authentically in the experimental, creative, …

A Requiem For Certification, A Song Of Honors, Jeffrey Portnoy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay rejects any notion of professionalization in honors programs and colleges as well as any plan for the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) that is connected to implementing a process of certification or accreditation. The author offers historical details about the machinations of a small group of powerful NCHC officers who tried to turn the organization into an accrediting or certifying body and how they were successfully blocked by grassroots opposition from the membership and by a large group of NCHC past presidents who recognized the ill will and divisiveness that would result. The author discusses the damage that …

The Professionalization Of Honors Education, Patricia Joanne Smith

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors education in America has undergone a process that sociologist Theodore Caplow describes as professionalization. Caplow identifies four stages whereby a developing profession transitions to a professional association: organizing membership, changing the name of occupation from its previous status, developing a code of ethics, and after a period of political agitation, beginning a process by which to enforce occupational barriers. Each of these defined stages present new challenges to honors educators. This paper examines honors education in the context of specialization, considering both the origins and growth of honors education in the last century and contemporary discourse relating to certification …

Owning Honors: Outcomes For A Student Leadership Culture, Adam Watkins

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author provides an overview of a peer mentorship program within an honors curriculum and an assessment of its leadership culture. This culture is based on the values of servant leadership and an inclusive community of learners, and it is promoted through an orientation, training, and robust extracurricular component. The author explores the efficacy of leadership culture, considering its influence on peer mentors’ identification with the honors community and its influence on their learning outcomes.

“You’Re Almost In This Place That Doesn’T Exist”: The Impact Of College In Prison As Understood By Formerly Incarcerated Students From The Northeastern United States, Hilary Binda, Jill D. Weinberg, Nora Maetzener, Carolyn Rubin

Journal of Prison Education and Reentry (2014-2023)

This qualitative study examines the immediate and lasting impact of liberal arts higher education in prison from the perspective of former college-in-prison students from the Northeastern United States. Findings obtained through semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated people are presented in the following three areas: self-confidence and agency, interpersonal relationships, and capacity for civic leadership. This study further examines former students’ reflections on the relationship between education and human transformation and begins to benchmark college programming with attention to the potential for such transformation. The authors identify four characteristics critical to a program’s success: academic rigor, the professor's respect for students, …

The Grizzly, May 7, 2020, Kevin Leon, Lillian Vila Licht

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

How we Spend our Time During COVID-19 • Productivity is a Sham

Introduction To "The State Of The Syllabus" Special Edition Of Syllabus Journal, Katherine Harris, Rebecca Frost Davis, Matthew Gold

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Positioning the syllabus as a key artifact in the modern academy, one that encapsulates many elements of intellectual, scholarly, social, cultural, political, and institutional contexts in which it is enmeshed, we offer in this special issue of Syllabus a set of provocations on the syllabus and its many roles. Including perspectives from full-time and part-time faculty, graduate students, and librarians, the issue offers a multifaceted take on how the syllabus is presently used and might be reimagined.

The Grizzly, April 30, 2020, Kevin Leon, Madison Rodak, Skylar Haas, Ellie Lafountain

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ways Campus has Continued to Stay Connected Virtually • Two Seniors Awarded Watson Fellowship • Thank you, Gymnastics

The Grizzly, April 23, 2020, Kevin Leon, Ellie Lafountain, Madison Rodak, Kim Corona, Skylar Haas, Jen Joseph, Michael Stanziale

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Keeping up in the Quarantine • The Career and Post-Graduate Development Office Adjusts to Online Campus • New UCSG President Elected • Student Literary Magazine, The Lantern, Launches Online • Tiger King and the Spectacle of the Redneck • "Now Batting for the Ursinus College Bears, Number 21, Alex Mumme"

The Grizzly, April 16, 2020, Kevin Leon, Kim Corona, Daniel Walker, Vince Sposato

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Students React to Room and Board Adjustments • "Biden" my Time? I'd Rather not be • Coronavirus is Another Obstacle on the Comeback Trail for Pitcher Nick DeFeo

The Grizzly, April 9, 2020, Kevin Leon, Colleen Murphy, Madison Rodak, Jenni Berrios, Jake Supran

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Faculty Adjust to the Zoom Life • Center for Writing and Speaking Goes Online • Study Abroad Programs From all Around the World get Cancelled - and it Hurts • COVID Infects Ursinus' Record Books • Lazer's Historic Start Cut Short

The Grizzly, April 2, 2020, Kevin Leon, Kim Corona, Madison Rodak, Jen Joseph, Skylar Haas

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

The Canvas Commencement? • Film Festival Adapts to Online World • "The Circle Brazil" and Demystifying the Foreign • Profile: Hailey DiCicco

Gettysburg: Our College's Magazine Spring 2020, Communications & Marketing

Gettysburg: Our College’s Magazine

UPFRONT: "We Shall Overcome: A Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr." at the Majestic Theater

Table of Contents

President's Letter, Bob Iuliano

Noteworthy: The Launch of a College Podcast (Molly Foster)

Conversations: Letter to the Editor (Joanne Dearcopp ’62, Jane Barlowe P’14)

Conversations: Social Media (Nick Johnson ’90, Jennifer (Blount) Sanford P’19, Phil Taylor ’71, Kristin Largen, Monae Evans ’15, Alyssa Kaewwilai ’20, Abigail Major ’19, Phoebe Doscher '22)

News: (President Bob Iuliano, Lauren Bright ’90, Jamie Fleet ’02, Ryan Woodward '12, Prof. Sahana Mukherjee, Prof. Bruce Larson, Stephen Nelson ’69, Jen Fisher Bryant’s ’82, Abigail Letts O’Brien …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2020)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers . v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines . vi

Dedication to Rae Rosenthal . vii

Editor’s Introduction ix — Ada Long

Forum essays on “The Professionalization of Honors”

The Professionalization of Honors Education 3 — Patricia J. Smith

Honors, Professionalism, and Teaching and Learning: A Response to Certification 19 — John Zubizarreta

The Body of Honors: Certification as an Expression of Disciplinary Power 25 — Richard Badenhausen

A Requiem for Certification, A Song of Honors 33 — Jeffrey A. Portnoy

Swan Song 45 — Joan Digby

A Different Kind of Agitation . …

The Rise And Fall Of South Carolina College, Robert D. Cathcart Iii

Senior Theses

Through a thorough examination of the underpinnings of Classical education, as well as the history of South Carolina College, it is clear that the classical system is superior to the later University system imposed upon the College during the Reconstruction period. Classical education began in the Greek philosophic schools, such as the Academy and the Lyceum, and was intended to enrich the soul of its students, as well as to equip them for leadership in the future. But the most important aspect of this education was its universality. It is highly ironic that the original concept of the University …