Vol 4 No 7
On the day of the Honors Studies dinner, I decided I wanted
to pose a freewrite prompt in my two Honors classes to find out what Honors
meant to them. In one class. I had 19
students who were mostly all first semester students. In the other, 8 students who ranged from
brand new to the college to about to graduate.
I then went through I made a list of the general tenor of each response
= grabbing phrases and sentences that stood out to me for whatever reason. I tried not to overthink it, but rather grab
what felt like the heart of each response.
The results were powerful to me
for a variety of reasons – all of which hit the heart of what Honors means to
ME.
As I looked at the list, I was suddenly struck with an
idea. Rather than share the list with
you, I’ll share the idea. I threw all
the phrases a I grabbed into an online tool that created a picture of the most
repeated words. This is the result.
I love this for so many reasons. Look at the biggest words – learning,
community, sharing, deeper, comfortable, knowledge, enthusiasm. And things.
I’m not sure what that last one is doing there, but all the others, as
well as the rest of the image, really capture the power of Honors. And yet, when I took the image to the Honors
dinner and invited those in attendance to share things they thought were
missing, they added these things:
- Enthralling…twice
- Judge-free zone…
- Resourceful…
- Intersectional…
- Awesomeness…
- Making dreams come true…
- Our own Disneyland…
- Home…
- Hugged stuffed animals…
- Redemption…
- Everything…
Quite the list of ideas inspired by what was said and heard - and the emotional support badger that helped when courage was needed. Redemption is powerful. Intersectional is amazing. Everything is telling.
There isn’t much else I want to add to this description of
the dinner – it was everything it always is and yet it was also its own unique
version. Someone cried, someone they
didn’t know joined in, voices shook as one by one people pushed themselves to
add their thoughts to the evening. Provost
Jonathan Keiser challenged each student to find a friend to sign up for Honors
classes. We threw people under the bus
and ‘made’ them speak and, each time, they said something profound and
beautiful. We laughed, we ate too much,
we packed take home containers, we milled about and afterwards, we met new
people and forged plans for the coming semester. And we got rocks.
And later, when a class reflected on the experience, they
added even more to the larger conversation of what Honors means. - safe, supportive, and understanding
- we all care about our identity as Honors students
- we are all really connected
- a sense of home and safety
- right away I felt included
- part of the in group for once
- could help you come out of your shell
What an amazing experience for all of us. For the staff, the
faculty, and the students who gathered together to share food and laughter and
stories of inclusion and community, one thing became abundantly clear and it
can be summed up with three words with which one student ended their response
paper….
WE ARE HONORS!!!!!!
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