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Honors As Neighborhood: 1995 National Collegiate Honors Council Presidential Address, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

1995 National Collegiate Honors Council Presidential Address, published in the National Honors Report, Vol. XVI, No. 4 (winter 1996), 21–24; rpt. in NHR Vol. XX, No. 4 (winter 1999), 9–12. The typographical errors have been silently corrected.

In this address to members of the National Collegiate Honors Council, outgoing president Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024) reflects on the sensibility and characteristics of neighborhood and considers what this means to honors education and its community of learners. Identifying three values of neighborhood—conversation, personal affiliation and belonging, and caring—Long expounds on their relevance to educators and society at large on the cusp …

Honors As A Changing Neighborhood, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors programs were conceived for traditional-age suburban middle-class majority-culture students who live on campus or nearby and do not hold full-time jobs or have family responsibilities. While the college population of this century is much more diverse and just as academically capable, first-generation students from traditionally marginalized populations see honors communities as unfamiliar, scary, and unwelcoming neighborhoods. Honors programs seek diversity but practice assimilation with exclusionary admissions policies, curricular inflexibility, and an emphasis on place-dependent community building that invites students to come into honors space rather than taking their offerings out to meet them where they are. Lack of funds …

Honors, Equity, And The Difference Principle, K. Patrick Fazioli

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While honors programs have made notable advancements in diversity and inclusion, the issue of educational equity remains unresolved. Tensions between providing special opportunities for high-achieving students and adhering to principles of social justice continue to shape the “neighborhood of honors.” This essay seeks to address educational unfairness through Rawls’s “difference principle,” which asserts that inequalities are morally permissible only if they benefit the least advantaged in society. The author suggests that honors programs can adhere to this principle by focusing on service and support for marginalized groups within and beyond the campus community, providing opportunities for talented students from underserved …

From Individuals To Neighbors: Growth Through Embracing Positionality, Joy L. Hart, Andrea Radasanu, Rebecca C. Bott-Kutson, Jonathan D. Kotinek

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Drawing inspiration from Dr. Ada Long’s (1995) presidential address, the authors describe an experience that facilitates neighborhood-building among honors educators and students across the nation as well as a neighborhood approach to understanding social problems. Focusing on food justice in the first year of the Justice Challenge, honors students learn about community needs, develop leadership and partnership skills, and collaborate with community members through an array of opportunities. Throughout the academic year, individual positionality shifts through deeper engagement with multiple viewpoints and facilitates new approaches for collaboration toward effectively addressing thorny problems. Cultivation of such connections is central in revitalizing …

Institutional Neighborhoods And The Stories They Tell, Joyce Olewski Inman

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council's (NCHC’s) tribute to Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024), this response to “Honors as Neighborhood” (1995) encourages scholars and practitioners to (re)consider the problems with conceptualizing honors programs as neighborhoods given the systemic inequalities associated with both. Drawing from experience at an R1 regional institution in the South, the author outlines the institutional histories of programming in both basic writing and honors to elucidate the systemic racism leading to the creation of these programs and illuminate the stories these programs tell about the deep stratification evident on college campuses across the nation.

International Honors Neighbors, Mimi Killinger, Abigail Arnold, Abby Bouchard, Katharine Poulin, Gabriella Shetreet, Kailee Soucia

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

cohort of five students and one faculty member share ways in which their Bulgarian study abroad experience (2024) built upon an existing international partnership and, in so doing, aligned with the tenets of, and goals for, “neighborhoods” as described by Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024). The authors describe lessons learned through the unique pedagogy and practices of NCHC’s City as Text^®, suggesting that honors may be especially well suited for neighborly international exchange. The authors describe their study abroad experiences as being effective in developing a sense of global citizenship across cultural divides and cultivating an actual sense of …

Neighbors Outside, Inside, And Beyond The Classroom: A Pioneering Honors Program In The University Of Illinois System, Katie Carlson-Eastvold, Marc Klingshirn, Elise Lobue

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The authors describe the shift from an upper-division university to a four-year school and the establishment of an honors program as a result. This essay chronicles the inaugural honors class, characterizing the pioneering aspect of its undergraduates. Reflecting on institutional history and the neighborliness of honors, authors consider the impact that living-learning community (LLC) experience and classroom spaces have on both the individual and the collective. Authors discuss the utility of student codes of conduct, agreed-upon guidelines for class discussions, and student input on course design and delivery. Across the spectrum of undergraduate experiences—from those during the first year to …

Expanding Our Honors Neighborhood: Teaching In And About Jails And Prisons, Victoria M. Bryan, Owen Cantrell

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024) advocated for equal access to quality education. Authors suggest that her reflections on neighborhoods, community, and intentional inclusion were not one-off musings but rather indicative of how she saw her responsibility as an educator. Drawing on Long’s establishment of a lecture series that brought faculty into a local Alabama prison to share research with incarerated students, this essay presents firsthand experiences teaching honors courses in prison, particularly those offered at Walker State Prison as part of Georgia State University’s Prison Education Project (2016–2023). While honors colleges often build programs to be as community-centric as possible, authors …

Good Neighbors, James Ford

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In response to Dr. Ada Long’s 1995 NCHC Presidential Address “Honors as Neighborhood,” the author argues that making honors an open neighborhood is a worthy goal that requires significant work. Programs emphasizing student and faculty reflection, diverse voices, purpose, and the wholeness of human beings increase a sense of belonging in honors. Long’s presence, words, and ideas continue to inspire the work of others.

Building, Dwelling, And Thinking With Ada Long, Lisa L. Coleman

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In response to Dr. Ada Long’s (1945–2024) insistence that political conversation is key to teaching and service, both of which inform each other, the author contemplates the personal impact and evolving cultural import of Martin Heidegger. Using Heidegger’s “Building Dwelling Thinking” (1971) as touchstone, the author reflects on the conception of humans as “near dwellers,” or neighbors who “build” because they “dwell,” and considers the weight this idea carried as a graduate student and again as an instructor of Advanced Composition. The author describes a teaching methodology that used Heidegger’s essay as a lens through which students might view, read, …

Actualizing The Et Al.: Twenty Years Of Editor’S Introductions, Emily Walshe

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The complete process of writing, conceived as the production of a cogent piece, is rarely a solitary pursuit. This essay celebrates Dr. Ada Long’s contributions as editor-in-chief of NCHC journals for over two decades. Using content and bibliometric analyses, the author provides insights on Long’s use of language and rhetorical purpose; her fostering of collaborative, multidisciplinary scholarship; and unwavering commitment to developing and maintaining strong editorial boards. Term map and visualizations are included.

Dispatch From Ada Long’S Honors Neighborhood, Michael E. Sloane

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024) launched the honors program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) in the fall of 1983 and directed it until her retirement in 2004. This essay examines how the defining characteristics of neighborhoods she discusses in her 1995 NCHC Presidential Address were embedded in her honors program. As a close colleague and teacher in Long’s interdisciplinary arts and sciences program, the author considers how the characteristics of diversity, sense of personal affiliation and belonging, and culture of caring were woven into the fabric of the program she founded and developed. As Ada’s successor, the author …

“The Direful Spectacle Of The Wrack”: Teaching Against Colonialism Through Shipwrecks And Shakespeare, Sara A. Rich

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

It has become increasingly apparent that anti-colonial and anti-racist pedagogies are necessary in higher education classrooms, and honors education as an experimental zone is an ideal place to test ideas that can be taken into the wider university community. Honors professors epitomize the teacher-scholar model, and this paper presents a six-year trajectory of anti-colonial pedagogy coupled with original interdisciplinary research in the social sciences, arts, and humanities. Bringing canonical Shakespeare into conversation with historical shipwrecks and their aftermath, students learn how The Tempest was written at a pivotal point in history, coincidentally situated in the same year as the earliest …

Marginalized First-Time Honors Students Explain The Impact Of Tracking Labels, Trina Sotirakopulos

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Many of the variables that determine college admission are beyond a student’s control, including the academic track they were assigned as early as primary school, a practice often referred to as “ability grouping” or constructing “skills-homogeneous” classes. Even in higher education, students feel the effects of unequal sorting and sifting from tracking. The purpose of this study was to learn from marginalized community college students placed in low- and middle-track courses in high school how taking honors courses for the first time shaped their perceptions of their identities. Data were gathered from a single cohort at a midwestern community college …

Equity And Inclusion In Honors: A Case Study Of Admissions Changes, Trevor Zink, Andrew Dilts

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Creative levers for change often emerge in times of institutional uncertainty. As higher education continues to confront institutional racism, honors programs can exercise their power to increase diversity and educational outcomes for excluded and marginalized students, as well as influence related university-level policy. This case study chronicles dramatic changes to admissions policies and programmatic offerings in honors between 2020–2023. Changes in admissions practices markedly diversified the student body, moving it from a 60% white population to 60% minority population in just three years. Conversations around race and racism were initiated, inculcating a culture of inclusion rather than elitist exceptionalism. As …

About The Authors [Jnchc (2024) 25(1)]

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the authors from the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (2024) volume 25, number 1, pages 185-189.

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council (Spring/Summer 2024) 25(1): Whole Issue

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (spring/summer 2024), volume 25, issue1.

Forum on Honors as Neighborhood

Contents

Dedication to Suketu P. Bhazar

Guest Editor’s Introduction, Linda Frost

Honors as Neighborhood, Ada Long

Honors as a Changing Neighborhood, Betsy Greenleaf Yarrison

Honors, Equity, and the Difference Principle, Patrick Fazioli

Institutional Neighborhoods and the Stories They Tell, Joyce Olewski Inman

From Individuals to Neighbors: Growth through Embracing Positionality, Joy L. Hart, Andrea Radasanu, Timothy Nichols, Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson, and Jonathan Kotinek

International Honors Neighbors, Mimi Killinger, Abigail Arnold, Abby Bouchard, Katharine Poulin, Gabriella Shetreet, and Kailee Soucia

Neighbors Outside, Inside, and …

Dedication To Suketu P. Bhazar, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Dedication to Suketu P. Bhazar, a fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), member of the NCHC Board of Directors (2013–2016), and NCHC President (2021).

Guest Editor's Introduction, Linda Frost

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Guest Editor Linda Frost's introduction to the spring/summer 2024 issue of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council, volume 25, issue 1.

Honors Flourishing In The Midst Of Change, Hao Hong, Robert Glover, Mimi Killinger, Jordan Labouff

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In the wake of formidable institutional change, and in response to administrative concerns about honors’ place within the university, authors describe the development of a pilot course that led to a program’s critical self-study and course transformations that were long overdue. Citizen Scholarship and Human Flourishing incorporates specific practices such as peer instruction and “ungrading” to align with new institutional learning objectives and broadly defined undergraduate research experiences across disciplines. The experimental course presents honors as a model for progressive curricular change in the midst of shifting administrative landscapes.

Jnchc, Vol. 24, No. 1: Backmatter, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the authors

JNCHC: Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (Spring/Summer 2023) 24(1): 92-99

Forum essays on "Regime change in honors"

Journal editor Ada Long, University of Alabama at Birmingham

About the NCHC Monograph Series

NCHC monographs and journals

NCHC publications order form

In this issue: Forum essays on "Regime change in honors" and research essays

Diversity In Honors: Understanding Systemic Biases Through Student Narratives, Aman Singla, Minerva Melendrez, Mable T. Thai, Sukhdev S. Mann, Denise Zhong, Kim T. Hoang, Isabella H. Lee, Andrea V. Aponte

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Centered on superiority over a certain group or individual, discrimination becomes predominant in prestigious institutions that pride themselves on exclusivity. Collegiate honors programs tend to deepen this practice by creating highly elite spaces accessible only to a select few. This rigidity can lead to an underrepresentation of historically marginalized groups, students who often lack the necessary resources for achieving academic excellence. This case study examines the ways honors programs inadvertently perpetuate discrimination among different social identities. Using inductive interviewing of honors students (n = 12) to gauge individual perceptions of program diversity, researchers rely on content analysis to generate …

Resisting Disciplinarity: Curriculum Mapping And Transdisciplinarity, Megan Snider Bailey

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

American higher education relies on a taxonomy of knowledge stemming from Puritan ways of thinking and knowing—a disciplinary classification system that sorts “questions asked” and “answers possible” into epistemic categories. This paper interrogates the notion of disciplinarity to better understand the arbitrariness of epistemic divisions and the harm that these decisions cause. The author explores transdisciplinarity as an emerging concept in honors education, one which rejects boundaries and explores problems through multiple, competing perspectives. Transdisciplinary pedagogical approaches offer honors educators a mechanism for pivoting teaching and learning away from outdated assumptions of honors as elitist, giving honors students a liberating …

Jnchc: Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council; Forum Essays On "Regime Change In Honors," Vol. 24, No. 1, Spring/Summer 2023: Complete Issue, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers v

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines vii

Dedication to James Joseph Buss ix

Editor’s Introduction, Ada Long xi

Forum Essays on “Regime Change in Honors”

A Defiant Honors Response to Regime Change. John Zubizarreta 3

Meet the New Boss: An Honors Faculty Member Weathers Administrative Change, Annmarie Guzy 13

Leveraging Regime Change as an Opportunity to Reimagine, Reset, and Demonstrate Results in Honors, Irina V. Ellison 19

Regime Change as Opportunity: A Case for a Radically Inclusive Response, Massimo Rondolino 25

Honors Flourishing in the Midst of Change, Hao Hong, Robert Glover, Mimi Killinger, and …

Meet The New Boss: An Honors Faculty Member Weathers Administrative Change, Annamarie Guzy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author reflects on the role of honors faculty in effectively responding to short- and long-term administrative change, discussing the value of resistance to deleterious administrative decisions and offering advice for successfully navigating cyclical administrative shifts in honors.

Leveraging Regime Change As An Opportunity To Reimagine, Reset, And Demonstrate Results In Honors, Irina V. Ellison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Regime changes in higher education can be a source of disruption and lead to a potential derailment of honors programs. This paper describes one honors program’s agility and effective negotiation through a rapid succession of upper administrative change, suggesting that when seen as opportunities these changes invite honors practitioners to re-envision, reset, and reevaluate programmatic set points for admissions, student learning, and curricular innovation.

Regime Change As Opportunity: A Case For A Radically Inclusive Response, Massimo Rondolino

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author proposes a radically inclusive approach to reimagining and rebuilding honors education at a time of institutional change, suggesting that when directives do not include a clear vision for academic curricula in practice and orientation (and instead focus on budgetary bottom lines and cost-maximization), honors practitioners benefit from an invaluable opportunity to exert self-determination and agency. This essay describes the effective rebuilding of an honors program by leveraging faculty experience to establish a collaborative community framed within a model of student self-governance and grounded in principles of mindful leadership, anti-cruelty mentality, and maternal thinking.

Ready For Business: Developing An Online Business Honors Course For Quality, Engagement, And Inclusivity, Kayla N. Sapkota

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay presents the creation process for an online honors course in the field of business. Highlighting engagement, critical thinking, and inclusivity as central themes, the author describes the course’s inception, structure, outcomes, and post-teaching reflection. The pedagogical framework includes integrative current event assignments and team activities. Noting student responses as generally positive, the author suggests how future versions might expand on remote teamwork opportunities.

Jnchc, Vol. 24, No. 1: Frontmatter, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Frontmatter for JNCHC: Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (Spring/Summer 2023) 24(1): ii-xvii

Forum essays on "Regime change in honors"

Journal editor Ada Long, University of Alabama at Birmingham

ISBN 978-1-945001-19-2 | ISSN 1559-0151

Includes front cover, masthead, table of contents, Call for papers, editorial policy, deadlines, submission guidelines, dedication to James Joseph Buss (Northern Kentucky University), and editor's introduction by Ada Long (University of Alabama at Birmingham).

Jnchc: Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council; Forum Essays On "Regime Change In Honors," Vol. 24, No. 2, Fall/Winter 2023: Complete Issue, National Collegiate Honors Council

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Contents

Call for Papers

Editorial Policy, Deadlines, and Submission Guidelines

Dedication to Cliff Jefferson and Mitch Pruitt

Editor’s Introduction - Ada Long

Forum Essays on “Creating an Honors Faculty”

Creating and Celebrating Honors Faculty - Lynne C. Elkes

Honors as Incubator for Creating and Sustaining Faculty Professional Growth - Marlee Marsh and John Zubizarreta

Building an Honors Community that Values and Celebrates Faculty - Kristine A. Miller

Peanuts and Shoestrings: Building an Honors Faculty Pool with Limited Resources - Victoria M. Bryan

Research Essays

Developing Honors Faculty through Faculty Development Programs - Aaron Hanlin

A Relational Model for Honors Education: …