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