Honors Matters So Much

Vol 2. No. 10

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” – Dr. King

Hello from Atlanta!

I’m here with over 5,000 administrators, directors, deans, support staff, faculty, and students of Honors exploring everything from social justice to building annual reports.  I’ve attended sessions on mental health, supporting trans and non-binary students, encouraging leadership in students, building community, and engaging in self-reflection.  I’ve also visited a number of interesting places in Atlanta – from The World of coke to the home where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born.  And there’s still two more days!  Lots of sessions to attend over those next two days – and I plan to also visit the National Center for Civil and Human Rights as well.

One of the things that keeps coming up all throughout this conference is the idea that wellness is key to success – that wellness of the mind and the concept of self-care can be the thing that makes or breaks a student’s ability to be engaged and successful in college.  It’s also come out that Honor’s students are more prone to not only being harder on themselves, but also suffering as a result of that pressure.  Many of us know that many of the students that find Honors appealing are the ones that don’t always fit in easily with their peers.  Add to this the stigma attached to mental illness and we find ourselves with a slew of issues that stand in the way of success.   They have much on their side, though – passion, enthusiasm, a passion for learning, and a desire to find others who are equally invested in the learning experience.  They have really big ideas and sometimes, all they need is a little push to help them see those big ideas come to fruition.

And you know?  The same is true for all of us who gravitate towards Honors as faculty and support staff have the same sorts of issues – in fact, we often have trouble saying no and we often find ourselves trying to do EVERYTHING because we care so much about Honors, the things it stands for, and the students it serves. 

We had a plenary speaker today named Bryan Stevenson who wanted to talk about how to change the world.  One of the things he said is that he has spent his adult life fighting for people who are broken – the poor, the incarcerated, the excluded, and the condemned.  He said that there came a time when he wanted to quit because he was so exhausted from trying to save broken people and it really led him to question why he had given so much of himself to help them.  And his answer?

He is broken, too.

He said we are ALL broken and we – the folks in Honors – are some of the ones who are broken enough to change the world.  And he told us how to do that.

Step 1 – Get proximate.  We have the power to embrace people, get close, and exact change.

Step 2 – Change the destructive narrative of fear and anger.  What if, instead of declaring drug use a crime, we declared it a health issue?  Can you see how that would change the whole story….if we stopped being afraid of that which we don’t know or understand and stopped lashing out in anger?

Step 3 – Keep our hopefulness.  When we lose hope, we lose any drive or motivation to keep going.  It takes bravery and courage to be hopeful in the face of the world around us – but we must.

Step 4 – Good people need to be willing to do uncomfortable things. 

I have felt this last one myself recently.  As a white woman who grew up in middle class suburban America, I often feel completely out of my element talking about race in my classrooms.  I hate conflict.  I hate political debate.  I hate much of what is happening in the world around us.  But because I hate all of those things, I have felt increasingly that my role is to draw attention to these things so that the students in my classes can be part of the positive change that needs to happen in our world.

This is Honors.  So many things are Honors and I’m learning so much about how everything I believe in is infused in my Honors classes, even when I’m not aware of it.

I will not say that my classrooms are safe spaces because that term has been tainted by hateful rhetoric that does not understand what it means.  What I WILL say, however, is that I see Honors classrooms as safe places – places to be you, to find you, to celebrate you, and to challenge the things about you that need to be challenged.

This is Honors.  You are Honors.

The house where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born

Honors Dinner Remarks

Vol. 1 No. 19

The following is a transcript of the opening remarks I gave at the Spring 2017 Honors Dinner last night.  Give it a read - there are some important things to be learned about changes coming to Honors!

Hello, everyone…I’m happy you’re here. Like last semester, it took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to say and how I wanted to open this evening. I love everything about Honors, so it’s not that I have nothing to say, it’s just that I should probably try to focus on something specific. If you ask anyone who knows me, you will quickly learn that my brain can be a little scattered. Then again, this is true for a lot of Honors students (and perhaps other faculty – ‘Hi Linda!’) I know as well, so perhaps you can relate. In any event, welcome. The title of these opening remarks comes to us from a French critic, journalist, and novelist who once said plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose – which literally translates to ‘the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing’. I call it this because this is, as many of you know, the second Honors Studies dinner and, oddly enough, it is also the last one under Honors Studies as we know it. Honors has been an amazing and powerful experience for so many people that it feels strange to say that we are changing nearly everything about it. If it’s so wonderful, then why change it? The answer to that first requires reassurance.

The phrase ‘nearly everything’ implies that all the important things will change, but in this case, the opposite is true. Honors is remaining fundamentally the same. We will remain a place for ALL curious and passionate learners to find themselves….and each other. It will continue to celebrate self-reflection and lifelong learning. We will certainly still offer amazing courses taught by amazing faculty. We will absolutely keep fostering interdisciplinary collaborations and intellectual rigor while remaining true to seminar-style teaching and student-centered learning. In other words, the heart of Honors is remaining exactly what it is. These are the fundamental aspects that make Honors Studies what it is.

Before I go any further, I want to caution you that what I say tonight may change as we move forward. You are the first students to really hear about this and we don’t yet have all the pieces in place. Change can be a slow process, but we are close enough to having things ready that I’m sharing it with you. I’m too excited about it not to. This is the same reason why I’m terrible at giving gifts…I usually can’t wait until the appropriate time. Anyway, what I say tonight may change here and there or be tweaked to fit some larger purpose, but I assure you that we will keep all that makes Honors special and, in doing do, make it even more special.

So, back to changes. If the heart of Honors is staying the same, then what ARE we changing? Well, everything else. Our reasoning is that we want to more visibly showcase what makes Honors Studies special by solidify its goals, strengthening its identity, and making it easier for students to experience Honors and attain Honors status. So, again, what does THAT mean? What are we changing?

Well, I’m not sure if any of you have noticed, but a lot of the words we use to talk about Honors are confusing in the face of everything else in an academic setting. It gets called a program – which it is not. You can earn a certificate or a diploma – but technically, it’s neither one. We call them Honors credits, except it means something a little different than when we talk about your transcript. Even the word Honors gets confused with the word given to students who are recognized solely for high GPAs. All of this is going to change.

Students will now be earning points towards becoming an Honors Studies Scholar – gone will be the certificate and the diploma. There will still be Honors Studies Contracts and Honors Studies Seminars and Honors Studies in the Disciplines. But we are now going to add Honors Studies Events that will allow you to earn points towards Scholar status outside of the classroom where, honestly, some of the best learning sometimes occurs. The self-reflective essay prompts will start to look familiar to you as you move from Honors course to Honors course, or contract, or even event. There will be more opportunities, more visibility, more uniformity, and more celebration of the hard work that all of you do or may do in Honors Studies.

<<I went off script here and talked about how the Honors Studies Events will feature work already being done on campus such as the Women's Leadership Initiative and talks that are already hosted by various departments on campus.  I also talked about how we would like to host our own talks about things like the heroin epidemic in upstate New York, or perhaps talks centered on courses we hope to offer in future semesters.  I then spoke briefly about how we would like to have an event each semester that celebrated the work students were doing IN Honors by hosting an Honors Studies Convocation where students were invited to present posters or perhaps a short talk about their projects in Honors courses to whomever attended from the faculty, staff, and student body of FLCC.>>

I have said it many times before, but I adore Honors Studies. I think it’s a unique and amazing opportunity and the changes we are making will help us show off what Honors Studies is, while still respecting the core values of not only Honors as a whole, but also the values of the college. We are NOT the Honors Program anymore because we never really were. We are now Honors Studies, a name which reflects what we have always valued, what we still value, and what we will continue to value – a curiosity and passion for study, for learning, for personal growth. I hope these hints of what’s coming encourage you to explore or continue to explore Honors Studies and really find out who you are and what you are capable of.