Thinking Outside the Blog - Guest Blogger

Vol 2 No 31

Opportunity in life is everywhere, perhaps no more so than during your college experience.  This week's guest blog comes from Jennie Erdle, Director of Student Life and member of the Honor's Advisory Board.  Profoundly dedicated to student academic, intellectual, emotional, and social success, Jennie's office does amazing work for students.  In this guest blog, she reflects on one of those projects.  Not just a past project, but a project that continues on.  Information on how to be involved in Fall 2018 is included.

Thinking outside the Blog…

Honors Studies meets Women’s Initiative on Leadership and Curiosity Blooms

At the end of Fall 2017, Dr. Trista Merrill, Director of Honors Studies approached Jennie Erdle, Director of Student Life with an idea she was curious about. In an attempt to expand opportunities for students to gain more Honors Studies points, Dr. Merrill inquired about the Women’s Initiative on Leadership program that has been on campus for 5 years. Dr. Merrill herself has served as both a guest speaker, mentor, and part of networking sessions and was able to experience first-hand the impact this program has made on our student participants and how simple it might be to be interconnected back to their studies. You see, “Women” maybe in the title and yes, that is for sure the focus of this homegrown leadership program, but in truth this program has yielded over 480 student participants including women, men, transgender, and those students on the full gender spectrum showcasing both fluid identity and expression. For the first time in Spring 2018, this program counted towards Honors Studies Program points and within two short weeks of advertising we had four Honors Studies students participate, two of which had completed the leadership program in previous semesters.

This Fall 2018 Student Life will be kicking off their 6^th year, and the program itself has undergone a bit of a pick-me-up. With the ever changing societal influences, the program has updated some of the information that will be shared, so in a way it’s to keep the program vital and relevant to the rising tides of change. One small but important inclusionary item will be the addition of the theory behind Revolutionary Love in a Time of Rage, by Valarie Kaur. For more information on this, please take a moment to watch this Ted Talk found on You Tube. It is our greatest hope that with the inclusion of this topic will aid in arming students with additional skills to persevere though their college years with us and beyond. 

If you know a student who could benefit from not only extra Honors Studies points, but students who could benefit from a bit of self-discovery, civil discourse, and above all, is looking for a unique way to connect to the college, please do have them reach out to Jennie Erdle to be able to get them signed up.

Thank you and hope everyone is having a great summer!!

***

"Women's Initiative on Leadership taught me far more than leadership skills, and actually had me walking away with an increased understanding [of myself]" - Jill

New Old Words

Vol. 2 No 2.

So, what does the foundation of Honors look like?  In many ways, it's the same as it always has been:  reflection, inquiry, and collaboration in the pursuit of learning that lasts beyond the classroom and the institution.  But we feel that we've infused it with a few more words that capture the essence of what Honors at FLCC is and where it came from.

Curiosity.  Passion.  Engagement.  Challenge.  

So many who teach and learning in Honors Studies will tell you that it's not MORE work, it's different work.  But it's not just about 'work' - there are so many other words and things that you should know if the core of Honors Studies is something you seek to really understand.  From our mission, talked about last week, comes our learning outcomes.  These are the things we want students to have gained by the time they leave us and FLCC.  

• Students will be able to reflect on and evaluate their internal learning process
• Students will be able to analyze external connections among their own learning experiences
• Students will be able to articulate the value of intellectual pursuit in a scholarly tradition

Can you see them?  Those same ideas of reflection, new modes of learning, inquiry, and intellect.  There are some parts that might look or sound new, though they are really not.  We've just found new ways to say them.  And we made sure that the things that we hold as the heart of Honors Studies link to the FLCC Values.   It wasn't hard to do - they overlap and inform each other in so many exciting ways.

Vitality is reflected with all three of our learning outcomes in Honors Studies, most readily with the third one.  Exploring scholarly tradition really encourages us see how the concepts and content of a course exist outside the classroom in complex ways.  Within the classroom, the second learning outcomes leads Honors Studies students to explore their learning in a collective context, while self-evaluation (in the first learning outcome) is directly linked to well-being.  We have to look to ourselves to engage in self-care at all levels - emotionally, physically, intellectually, and even spiritually.

We find interconnection most obviously in the second learning outcome where you will be directly challenged to find connections among learning experiences.  The first learning outcome hopefully leads to us realizing that our internal selves is what connects all the arenas of our lives and the one thing over which we have the most control.  Internal reflection also encourages you to connect with other students as well as faculty and staff. Meanwhile, the third learning outcome highlights that a discipline is a community of scholars and the conversations of the classroom are just one facet of conversations going on all around us.

All of the Honors Studies learning outcomes require perseverance.  Our emphasis on analysis, reflection and scholarship requires the continual push against intellectual, emotional, and circumstantial barriers.

Similarly, reflection, evaluation, analysis, and scholarship are based squarely in inquiry.  When students meet the three Honors Studies learning outcomes, they demonstrate the ability to pose questions and utilize endurance to pursue the answers.

So, there you have it.  The events, courses, and experiences you have in Honors Studies is so much more than just 'fun classes' that are taught in a different way.  We've put so much work in behind the scenes so you could have these experiences and we hope that you find just as much value in them as we do.  We also couldn't do ANY of this without you.

“It is only once in a blue moon that you are able to honestly say the experience of a classroom has changed your outlook on life. This course was one of my blue moons.”

-Amber

Mirror, Mirror....

Vol 1. No 16

One of the cornerstones of the Honors experiences is the reflection that happens along the way.  We talk about reflection all the time, but for those who are perhaps not familiar with the idea in connection with learning - what does reflection mean?    I mean, we know what a reflection is because we look in mirrors everyday and we comment on things like how beautiful it is when the sun reflects on the surface of a rippling lake.  But what does it really mean?

If we look back in time, we can learn that the word reflection comes from the Latin reflectere, which means "to bend backwards, turn away."  We can see this in our sun on the lake, for the light is bent back upwards from the water; however, that doesn't much help when we think about learning.  It becomes interesting to note that in the 1640's, reflection was understood to mean "remark made after turning back one's thought on some subject" (Read more at the Online Etymology Dictionary).  Now we are getting somewhere!

I've said in a number of Honors Studies talks that we seem to spend a lot of time in academia with disciplines firmly in place - you learn biology over here, and mathematics over there, and then you have English here, and sociology over there.  We are trying, at FLCC, to remove some of these barriers, by showing the interconnectedness of disciplines.  The college challenges students to make connections and Honors is part of that.

Reflection in Honors is about seeing connections in all sorts of ways.  It is the connection between different classes - from those in your program to the electives you chose.  It is the connection between yourself and your classmates and your instructor.  It's the connections between your college experiences and those in other arenas of your life.  It connections between your past, your present, and even your future.  It's thinking about how all of the facets of your life interact at any given moment.  It's turning back your glance to look at yourself and how you learn.  It's about appreciating the powers of your mind and what it can do.  It's about seeing where you fit into your world and where you want to fit.  It's about seeing what your limitations and obstacles are and how you can work on removing those.  In short, it's about better understanding yourself so that you can better understand the world around you.

If this seems like a daunting task, that is because it is.  Honors is not about throwing you into the deep end of the pool and hoping you learn to swim, however.  We want to help you start to make those connections and learn about who you are.  There are so many ways to do this and you'll find the approach to be a little bit different in every Honors class you take.  What you can always expect, however, is writing.  Sometimes at home, sometimes in class, sometimes in a combination activity that spans time spent in the classroom and some time spent elsewhere.  Sometimes you will be asked to go find another place to write and think.  Changing your environment can make a big difference in how you view the class and its content.

To show you what I mean, the following is an activity I use in my Perspectives on Tolkien class.  As you can see, it takes quotes from a shared reading and asks students to think about it - first in connection with the class content and then in relation to their journey as a learner in a larger context.  It makes the suggestion that how readers interact with a text is connected to events in the world around them and the frame of mind with which they approach the text.

What ways have YOU reflected on your learning and your place in the world?

***

First, read these four excerpts from Fuller’s essay:

·         “This is meaning…that the reader translates into appropriate analogies for his own life, if he is so minded:  as in the fact that courage and integrity, seen in any context, are enhancements and encouragements of those qualities wherever we have need of them” (19).

·         “[W]e are confronted basically by a raw struggle between good and evil.  This contest offers a challenge and demands decisions of several kinds.  The power of evil is formidable and ruthless.  The initial decision, in which many of the characters participate, is whether or not to attempt to resist it at all” (19).

·         “The intricacy of Tolkien’s web of cause and effect, of the interactions of motives and wills, natural and supernatural, is extraordinary and – notwithstanding the frame of fantasy – profoundly realistic” (24).

·         “It gives joy, excitement, a lift of spirits, and it contains the kind of wisdom and insight which, if applied to the world we inhabit, might help our sore-beset race to hang on through the present shadows of modern Mordor into yet another age” (30).

Now consider this:

Each of you came to this course with a love of Tolkien’s world, regardless of how you came to encounter it.  Though you have a shared love of the work, it is also true that you are each reading for something different and exploring with your own perspectives, interests, and experiences.  Whether this is your first reading or your hundredth, you are discovering new things and focusing on different aspects right along with celebrating old favorites.  In short, there is something new to be found for each of you.

Finally, write:

Choose a prompt that speaks to your place in the world right now and the frame of mind with which you are reading The Lord of the Rings.   Write a response in which you tie the quote you chose directly to a specific character or event in The Fellowship of the Ring or the first half of The Two Towers.  Then, push it one step further:  find where you fit in.  Why did you pick this quote?  What drew you to that character or scene in Fellowship / Towers?  How does this quote inform your reading of this first half of the trilogy?   How might this quote reflect you, your mindset, and the world in which you find yourself as you read the texts (this time)? 

Article:

Fuller, Edmund.  "The Lord of the Hobbits:  J.R.R. Tolkien."  Understanding the Lord of the Rings:  The Best of Tolkien Criticism.  Ed. Rose A, Zimbardo and Neil D. Isaacs.  Boston:  Houghton Mifflin, 2004.  16-30.  Print.

Chaos Matters! (Guest)

Vol 1. No. 13 - Guest blogger:  Dr. Sam Samanta

This week, as the Fall 2016 semester winds down, I thought it would be fun to look ahead to a whole new semester, a whole new year, and a whole new world of Honors courses to explore.  So, I give you a sneak preview of one of the best kept secrets at FLCC - a class in Chaos.  I don't know about you, but I have a lot of Chaos in my life, and it would be amazing to learn how it works in our world!  Consider taking this class which, Dr. Samanta assures me, should not be looked at as "too hard" for any of our students.  If you can Honors, you can do it.  Give it a try!

SCI 137 01 CHAOS: The Self-Organizing Universe  (Writing Intensive)

Dr. Sam Samanta: Fridays 2-4:50 pm Honors House  (Plus 2 hours On-line work) 

Sam.Samanta@flcc.edu    https://twitter.com/InvariantChaos 

Check out #SCI137 and #ChaosDuJour            

CHAOS MATTERS!

Do you ever wonder if the physical world and life driven by random events makes long-term predictions impossible? Scientists have found hidden patterns in solar-flares, weather, forest fires, stock-market crashes, flooding, earthquakes, cities, traffic-jams, internet, social-networks, galaxies, crimes, wars, tornados, hurricanes, and dynamics of human relationships. The temporal patterns of chaos are characterized by equations that can explain the apparent randomness. Through writing, discussion, lab experiences, and computer modeling, this course will explore the relevance of Chaos theory to our lives and demonstrate its impact across scientific disciplines as well as non-science areas such as communications, economics, the arts and humanities.

Now, more than ever before, we need a unified quantitative universal framework for making sense of the world; in order to communicate across disciplinary boundaries and undertake actions through which we affect change in our lives and world at large. We will identify Complexity as intersection of Chaos, Fractals, and Self-organization.

The core values focused at our college are: Inquiry, Interconnectedness, Perseverance, and Vitality. You will exemplify best practices of Inquiry through exploring Interconnectedness of issues that relate your major and/or life-long interests to the concepts and techniques of the Chaos course. We will exhibit Perseverance through the steps we undertake to overcome barriers to quantitative understanding of models and improving articulation of our synthesis through cycles of feedback on both written papers and verbal presentations (using PowerPoint/Prezi.). Through final public presentations to the community at large; we will exhibit Vitality of our intellectual journey and present actionable prescriptions for addressing the concurrent challenges we face at multiple scales: form personal lives, to lives of institutions, nation and world at large.

Your individual project work on this course could become basis for individualized major for baccalaureate and graduate studies or unique specialization in your professional career. This course is not about any singular destination. Your individual journey begins here for discovering new patterns of orderly disorder in the mind and the world; and finding effective strategies for harnessing creative forces from the chaos of life!

    

           

Giving Thanks...

Vol. 1, No. 11

There is a practice, in the world of bloggers and writers, to try and say everything you want to say in 300 words.  That is not always easy for me, but in this busy week of snowstorms and holidays, I thought it might be good to keep this blog short.  So, the following is an Honors version of being thankful, in exactly 300 words.

Every day the news seems to show a stricken nation, divided along lines that are too dug too deeply.  We face battles that we don’t know how to fight and we debate things that feel like we should not be debated.  So many of us are frightened, frustrated, and fatigued.  Even those who are winning are feeling the sting of this divisiveness.  The silver lining, however, is that we are afforded an amazing power to ask hard questions, engage in rigorous debate, and fight those battles.  We have voices that we can and are using.  We have individual and collective strength that very may well change the landscape of everything around us.  We can be greater and more powerful than the systems we are standing up against.  One of the ways we can do this in our local community is through the FLCC Values:  vitality, inquiry, perseverance, and interconnectedness.  These values are so much larger than simply what drives us as students and faculty and staff at the college.  They are the kinds of things that make humans better humans to themselves, each other, and the world around them.  Grown from these values are the learning outcomes for Honors that we are piloting this semester.  We want students to reflect on and evaluate their internal learning processes, analyze connections among learning experiences, and be able to articulate the value of intellectual pursuit in a scholarly tradition.  In short, Honors students should find within themselves the power to ask questions, be curious, learn and change and see the world as interconnected where they belong and have a place.  These qualities can carry us through the times that come and will give voice to the silenced, give power to the powerless, and embolden those who need courage.  For this, I am thankful.

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them." – John F. Kennedy