Liberal Studies Commons^™

Reading As Bearing Witness: Incorporating The Voices Of Incarcerated Youth In Honors, Lauren Collins, Amelia Hawes, Jorgia Hawthorne, Nicole Gomez, Erin Saldin

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors faculty often engage students in service-learning and community- engaged courses to help students learn curricular concepts, develop skills in responsible citizenship, and positively impact their community. Authors consider how the greatest impact honors students can have may sometimes be through bearing witness rather than through direct service or volunteering. This essay explores a case study involving a community partnership between an honors college and a local non-profit serving incarcerated youth, where the primary goal is to bring the writing and voices of young, incarcerated authors into the college classroom and give their stories a wider audience. Authors describe the …

Human-Centered Design As A Basis For A Transformative Curriculum, Bhibha M. Das, Tim Christensen, Elizabeth Hodge, Teal Darkenwald, W. Wayne Godwin, Gerald Weckesser

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This pilot study describes a nascent first-year honors colloquia series using human-centered design (HCD). An interdisciplinary team of instructors redesigned the course with the intention of engaging the whole student in transformative learning and creating a curriculum that addresses problems and opportunities focused on the needs, contexts, emotions, and behaviors of all students, faculty, administrators, and community involved in the series. Authors describe the HCD process, observing the challenges faced by faculty in realizing its design principles, and student (n = 98) reflections on a two-part prototype involving innovation and entrepreneurship emphasizing “wicked” problems and resolutions. Students were asked to …

Honors Alumni Re-Activation Through Interpersonal Engagement: Lessons Learned During Covid, Kevin W. Dean, Michael B. Jendzurski

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The 2020–2021 academic year presented many challenges to honors educators, including their ability to support honors education as a community of opportunity in virtual learning environments. This study considers how remote learning platforms emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated previously underutilized resources, such as alumni. Authors describe programming that emphasizes opportunities for interpersonal engagement between students and alumni and maximizes potential for relationship building and communal longevity. Intersections for alumni/student virtual connection in classrooms are identified, as are co-curricular events and recruitment initiatives for prospective students. To assess impact, a survey instrument was designed according to a conceptual model of …

Dedication: Andrew J. Cognard-Black

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Among many other contributions to the NCHC, Andrew has served on the Board of Directors (2018–2021), the Publications Board (2017–present), the Conference Planning Committee on at least four occasions, the Finance Committee, the Research Committee, and the Editorial Board of JNCHC. Andrew J. Cognard-Black is already recognized as a Lifetime Fellow of the NCHC, and we are pleased to add to his accolades by dedicating this issue to him along with gratitude for his exceptional contributions to the scholarship and vigor of honors education.

Honors The Hard Way, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The conventional structure of most honors colleges made it difficult to deliver curricula and programming during the global health pandemic. Traditional modalities for content delivery and community building did not always adapt well to online environments. By requiring that honors students come to campus, programs have been offering a brick-and-mortar education to prepare their students for a virtual workplace. Instead of clinging to what has now become obsolete or cost prohibitive, honors practitioners must think creatively about what honors education in virtual reality might look like. The author suggests a reallocation of resources from physical to virtual spaces and argues …

Building Community Online In Honors Education During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Annegien Langeloo, Wietske De Vries, Birte Klusmann, Marca Wolfensberger

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Face-to-face contact in higher education was greatly reduced during the global health pandemic. This study examines how honors educators experienced community building with both students and colleagues during the period of emergency remote teaching. A questionnaire was developed to assess both the quality and importance of contact with students and colleagues as experienced by teachers, as well as changes therein due to the pandemic. Thirty-seven honors educators from various disciplines at a single institution participated in the study. Quantitative analysis indicates that teachers found the contact with both their students and colleagues to be of good quality overall and that …

Editor’S Introduction: Jnchc 22:2, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The contributors to the Forum and also the authors of major research essays responded to the following Call for Papers,:

The next issue of JNCHC (deadline: September 1, 2021) invites research essays on any topic of interest to the honors community. The issue will also include a Forum focused on the theme “Honors after COVID,” in which we invite honors educators to look beyond the urgencies of the moment and imagine the pandemic’s impact on the future of honors in higher education. We invite essays of roughly 1000–2000 words that consider this theme in a practical and/or theoretical context. ... …

Business As Unusual: Honors And Post-Pandemic Gen Z, Kristine Miller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors is unusual not because it is elitist or exclusionary but because it responds directly, thoughtfully, and creatively to the needs and concerns of each new cohort of students. The present generation of college students expects their institutions to deliver clear value, rich diversity, and positive career outcomes; and these changes demand a better business model in higher education. This essay suggests that, too often, institutions confuse a better business model with cutting costs, a confusion that both threatens honors education and undercuts institutional integrity. A better and more sustainable approach is to define, articulate, and deliver the value of …

“Building Together”: City As Text™, Intersectionality, And Urban Farming During Covid-19, Carla Janell Pattin

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay considers various challenges to honors educational practice in a post-pandemic context and against the backdrop of Black Lives Matter. The City as Text™ course, Multicultural Toledo, cultivates student knowledge about intersectionality in light of public health and social justice emergencies in the United States. The author describes course content, curricular objectives, and teaching strategies toward helping students understand the dynamic interplay (intersection and interaction) of ableism, sexism, elitism, homophobia, and racism relative to the accession and acquisition of land. The course espouses a post-pandemic vision: an intersectional lens that fosters knowledge about power relationships and diverse lived experiences …

Contributors

Early College Folio

Contributors to issue 1 of Early College Folio

Table Of Contents

Early College Folio

Table of Contents | Issue 1 | Early College Folio

Jnchc 22:1--About The Authors

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Owen Cantrell • Tim Christensen • Andrew J. Cognard-Black • Teal Darkenwald • Bhibha M. Das • Linda Frost • Galit Gertsenzon • Wayne Godwin • Jerry Herron • Jason T. Hilton • Elizabeth Hodge • Jessica Jordan • Matthew Carey Jordan • Christopher Keller • Andrew Martino • Lucy Morrison • Jeffrey A. Portnoy • Art L. Spisak • Aaron Stoller • Carmen Walker • Gerald Weckesser • Leah White • Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Forging A More Equitable Path For Honors Education: Advancing Racial, Ethnic, And Socioeconomic Diversity, Andrew J. Cognard-Black, Art L. Spisak

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Despite a long tradition of social science research on educational access and barriers to inclusion for underrepresented minorities and the poor, until recently such issues have gotten relatively little attention in quantitative investigations of honors education. Public interest in educational access has grown in recent years, however, energizing discussions about the need to confront the exclusionary features of honors. The authors use data from the 2018 Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey to examine the degree and variability of underrepresentation in honors at a sample of major universities in the United States. They then identify a set of …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2021): Forum Essays On “The Boundaries Of Honors”

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers . v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines . vi

Dedication to Annmarie Guzy . vii

Ada Long, Editor’s Introduction ix

Forum essays on “the boundaries of honors”

Christopher Keller, “Mad and Educated, Primitive and Loyal”: Comments on the Occupations of Honors . 3

Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison, Crossing the Ohio: Welcoming Students of Color into the Honors White Space 13

Owen Cantrell, “Here’s the church, here’s the steeple”: Existing Politics of Honors Education 21

Leah White, Traveling in Circles: Gatekeeping in Honors . 27

Matthew Carey Jordan,Inquiry as Occupation 31

Andrew Martino, Territorial …

Understanding The Impact Of The Covid-19 Pandemic On Honors College Students: A Qualitative Content Analysis, Bibha M. Das, Carmen Walker, Elizabeth Hodge, Tim Christensen, Teal Darkenwald, Wayne Godwin, Gerald Weckesser

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While the coronavirus crisis altered all facets of life across the globe, its impact on American higher education posed immediate challenges to students and faculty alike. Disruptions in normal, in-person instruction affected all students’ abilities to connect and create, but first-year students and their professors were particularly restricted in areas relating to classroom engagement, interpersonal exchange, and academic support. This pilot study presents first-year experiences of honors students during this time. Using reflective writing exercises, authors examine and assess a range of student responses (n = 98) to this extraordinary circumstance. Qualitative content analyses and coding reveal eight major themes: …

Honors As Gadfly, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Although honors populations occupy only a fraction of institutional enrollments, they have undeniably changed the nature of higher education. This essay considers the impact of honors on university culture, processes, and infrastructure. Touted as a “critical element” of the comprehensive college experience for both students and faculty, honors exceeds and outpaces other units within the academy in curricular innovation, cross-functional collaboration, and high-impact practice, and by its example, it continues to provoke others into action by its persistent variation and maturation.

“Here’S The Church, Here’S The Steeple”: Existing Politics Of Honors Education, Owen Cantrell

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In considering the extent to which honors education should engage with political and social justice movements, the author argues that its programs must first reckon with their own histories and complicity within systems of domination and oppression before determining the best approach. This essay examines how the continued legacy of racialized tracking at the secondary level, as well as the exclusionary nature of collegiate honors programs, has often exacerbated inequalities for marginalized student populations. The author concludes with a call for honors practitioners to confront the history of honors education; to de-center honors in service learning and community engagement; and …

Bridging The Interval: Teaching Global Awareness Through Music And Politics, Galit Gertsenzon

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Inquiry in Global Studies: Music and Politics is a regular course offering in which first-year honors students examine the social and cultural import of music in a global context. This qualitative study examines the practical and pedagogical implications of teaching music and politics during the coronavirus crisis. In a thematic, five-part series analyzing non-Western music both in service to the government and as protest against it, the author describes how students perceived the commonalities and diversities in global culture, history, politics, and society through music while at the same time demonstrating growth in music-making processes and confronting a remote learning …

On Taking Emerson’S Good Advice: “If We But Know What To Do With It”, Jerry Herron

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In his 1837 essay “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson offers a challenge that is appropriate for honors practitioners today—namely, to figure out just how good a time this is to be doing the work we do. Honors students, faculty, and staff occupy every part of the institutions we call home, so we should take advantage of our position and of all we know about the measurable value added by our best practices to address the immediate challenges confronting us.

The Recruitment And Retention Of Diverse Students In Honors: What The Last Twenty Years Of Scholarship Say, Jason T. Hilton, Jessica Jordan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Common to most colleges and universities across the United States, honors programs are often criticized as havens for academically elite and privileged students. To help address concerns about the recruitment and retention of diverse honors students, this study presents a systematic review (2000–2019, inclusive) of published literature relating to diversity in honors education (n = 66). Identifying six emergent themes, authors examine the types of research presented in the literature; how diversity is defined by scholars; and programmatic best practices for increasing student diversity. A thorough description of one program’s flexible, innovative, and adaptive strategies for curricular improvement, recruitment practices, …

Inquiry As Occupation, Matthew Carey Jordan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors educators must acknowledge and respect clear boundaries between the work they do in the classroom and the advocacy they support or engage in as private citizens. Public colleges exist to prepare citizens for life in a pluralistic, democratic republic, and few limits should be placed here on what questions may be asked or which views may be expressed. By encouraging a clear delineation of the distinct roles occupied in a discourse community, the author offers a strategy for addressing contentious social issues in a principled manner.

“Mad And Educated, Primitive And Loyal”: Comments On The Occupations Of Honors, Christopher Keller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay examines the scope of honors scholarship and its role in creating and contributing to meaningful dialogue among practitioners. The author explores how scholarly contributions of honors educators cross boundaries to occupy the social, cultural, political, and economic conversations that shape lives and transform communities. Pointing to socio-political crises of 2020, the author posits that the conjunctive nature of honors discourse satisfies an expedient need for exploration and questioning, and he further considers how honors scholarship might incite positive change in and beyond honors curricula and scholarly record.

Bordering On Normal: Dissolving Honors Boundaries, Lucy Morrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

First-year students faced unprecedented challenges while transitioning from high school to university in fall 2020. The coronavirus crisis, economic downturn, social unrest, and a rapid and massive shift to remote learning altered their world in fundamental ways. This essay describes the response of one honors program toward providing extra- and co-curricular opportunities for student engagement with contemporary issues affecting the local community. While keeping the events of the world in view, the author demonstrates a virtual building of campus community. Pedagogical tools, such as service learning, complement a technological infrastructure for supporting colloquial inquiry and confronting social inequity, and they …

Keeping The Faith: Nchc’S Readers And Writers, Jeffrey Portnoy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors advocates and scholars should pursue transdisciplinary inquiry to overcome traditional notions of well-defined knowledge boundaries. This essay examines the publication record of the National Collegiate Honors Council beyond its immediate utilitarian value as a means for communication with its members. Citing usage and metrics, the author suggests that current and past literatures that examine the enterprise of honors, its occupation(s), and what occupies its practitioners are being accessed and integrated beyond honors at an exponential rate. As NCHC publications continue to push beyond the boundaries of honors, the author encourages readers to engage more fully in NCHC-sponsored discourse by …

Honors As A Third Space Occupation, Aaron Stoller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay argues that in order for honors to occupy and transform the academy it must begin by transforming itself. Drawing on Homi Bhabha’s notion of “third space,” the author argues that the traditional epistemic paradigms in higher education are inadequate for conceptualizing the praxis-driven work required in honors. Honors should be understood as a form of transdisciplinarity, with the aim of producing what is defined as Mode 2 knowledge. Only from within this nonbinary professional framework is honors capable of disrupting, reimagining, and transforming the university.

Traveling In Circles: Gatekeeping In Honors, Leah White

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay challenges boundaries in honors that are both intentional and unavoidable. Reflecting on what appears to be an overemphasis on boundaries and gatekeeping within honors, the author urges practitioners to consider its exclusionary culture and the extent to which it circles around its stated goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The current preoccupation of honors with reaching beyond its boundaries to embrace the goals of social justice movements, for example, reveals the extent of its entrenchment with concerns of Whiteness. This essay suggests that until honors practitioners are willing to do the difficult reflective work of understanding why boundaries …

Crossing The Ohio: Welcoming Students Of Color Into The Honors White Space, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors has long been a space for pushing boundaries and promoting culturally responsive teaching, yet students from underserved and marginalized populations rarely see themselves reflected in the designated intelligentsia of most universities. This essay considers several aspects of boundaries in, and barriers to, the honors experience. Implicit in marketing honors as “value-added” is the boundary between the honors curriculum and the “regular” curriculum from which other boundaries extend. From outmoded enrollment management and admissions policies to curricular and instructional strategies that hold to a pedagogy of whiteness, the author urges honors educators to create paths to student academic success by …

Jnchc 22:1 - Cover, Contents, Call For Papers, Editorial Policy, Dedication To Annmarie Guzy, Editor's Introduction, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers . v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines . vi

Dedication to Annmarie Guzy . vii

Ada Long, Editor’s Introduction ix

Barriers To Post-Secondary Success, Douglas Swanson, Najeana Henderson, Maritza Sloan

Dissertations

This study reviews factors that prior studies have identified or failed to consider as barriers to post-secondary success. The three main areas include academic success for Latinx students after high school, organizational systems and their impact on African-American students’ postsecondary readiness, and what workers think of their high school education with regards to career preparedness.

Five factors are identified as major barriers for Latinx students to continue in a higher education system. A survey of former students from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, metroplex area identified 56 Latinx students that participated in an initial survey. This led to a …

Reading The Local In The New Now: Mapping Hidden Opportunities For Civic Engagement In The First Virtual City As Text™ Faculty Institute, Season Ellison, Leslie Heaphy, Amaris Ketcham, Toni Lefton, Andrew Martino, Sara Quay

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

In spring 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic in full force, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Place as Text (PAT) Committee reimagined its longstanding City as Text™ (CAT) Faculty Institute model as an experimental virtual training titled “Reading the Local in the New Now” (RLNN). With the cancellation of two scheduled CAT Faculty Institutes because of the pandemic, the committee quickly shifted gears to develop and offer a fully online version of the program. Shorter in length, with participants joining from their homes across the country, the Institute was designed with key CAT principles as its foundation (Braid and Long; …