Opportunities Galore

Vol 2 No 26

I cannot believe how close we are to the end of the semester!  I hope you will consider joining us at this semester’s Honors Studies Convocation!  We will have posters (still time to make one!) set up outside Stage 14 from 10:00 – 4:00 on Friday, May 4th (the same day as May Day!) and then, at 4:00, four Honors Studies students will share the work they’ve been doing this semester in one of their Honors courses.  Please join us!

And then on May 16^th, at 5:30 in Room 200 of the Honors House, we have the Honors Studies Awards Ceremony and Graduation.  Come support your fellow Honors students as they are recognized for their achievements!

These events of recognition and celebration are becoming so important to me - and, quite frankly, they give me energy as I, too, am wallowing in end-of-the-semester exhaustion.  There is something about gathering together and taking an hour or so here and there to celebrate the work being done.  To really step back and see what it is we are really doing.  It's so easy to forget that in the whirlwind of the work you are doing, your classmates and fellow students are also doing amazing work.  All of you need to be reminded that the sleepless nights, the stress and pressure, the anxiousness and obstacles are all worth it.  You are likely your own worst critic and not enough of us know what the rest of the Honors community is doing.  We have Facebook, we have Twitter (see below!), we have Honors events and we even have an Honors Club.  But let's also read the names of those who have excelled above and beyond and remind them that what they are doing matters beyond the confines of their classroom walls.  And take the time to showcase your OWN work in a poster.  Celebrate yourself.  Celebrate Honors.  Take a bow.  You've earned it and you deserve it.

In fun news, the bulletin board outside my office (Canandaigua Wing Rm 4285)  is now looking a bit more festive!  Come check it out.

Looking ahead, I am hoping to encourage more folks to look into Lori Vail’s class this fall.  We have an interesting relationship with food in today’s culture – from Instagramming pictures of our meals to trying out gastro pubs and exploring what we can do with kale.  It seems like that for every one who is desperately watching what they eat, there’s another ridiculous food choice that can be made somewhere else.  And those Girl Scout cookies!  Don’t even get me started!  J

Seriously, though, this class will explore so many ideas with food at their center that it is bound to change how you interact with this very basic human need.  I am reminded of a poem by William Carlos Williams called “This is Just to Say”:

This is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

It has always fascinated me as a poem – centered on food and yet laced with meaning that is heavily determined by the reader.  So much of the world around us depends on our perception of things and yet there is so much truth to be discovered as well.  I hope that you will consider joining Lori Vail this fall as she takes on the exploration of food – something else that seems so simple and yet is laced with meaning that is heavily determined by the ….eater.

Seminars Matter

Vol 2 No 25

Lots of folks have begun to look at their classes for next semester and we are really excited about the Honors offerings. You heard a bit more about them at the Honors Studies dinner and can read the course descriptions on WebAdvisor, but that doesn't necessarily explain why you might want to take a seminar - or even what a seminar is or looks like.

So, why would you take a class that doesn't "do" anything other than fill a general elective? Part of that has to do with the other question. What IS a seminar?

Google's proprietary dictionary defines seminar as "a class at a college or university in which a topic is discussed by a teacher and a small group of students." Well, is that what a lot of classes at a college are? Perhaps just in between needed lectures, but still...that seems the heart of what college classes in general should be. The Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say:

"1887, "special group-study class for advanced students," from German Seminar "group of students working with a professor," from Latin seminarium "breeding ground, plant nursery" (see seminary). Sense of "meeting for discussion of a subject" first recorded 1944.

'Plant nursery' is a fascinating idea, but I'm not sure Honors Studies students are necessarily inclined to appreciate being compared to budding plants. But, it's getting a bit closer to the concept I'm aiming for when I think about what we mean by seminar. The first word there that stands out is 'special'. This is not to say that other classes for other students aren't special, but I firmly believe (and I admit I have a bias) that the special nature of Honors Studies seminars is more common than not. Far from being contradictory, this is really what I have observed and heard about the seminar experience. I often joke that if someone stuck their head into one of my Honors classes, they wouldn't necessarily be able to pick out the instructor compared to the students. That's more than just a joke - it's true. In the seminars more than in any other type of class, I'm sitting WITH students. There is now nothing in between them and I. We sit together as learners.

Now, I know that I can never fully erase my role as instructor with a suitcase full of grading and other responsibilities.  And I humbly lay claim to a little more expertise in general, given the number of years I've been in academia and studying whatever topic I've chosen, but to the extent that it is possible, I can learn from my students even as they learn from me.

Many of those who teach seminars do so because they want to research and dig more deeply into a topic about which they have an interest.  The thing about Honors Studies faculty (and many faculty in general) is that they have dedicated their lives to learning.  This is one of the ways they do so.  And this coming fall?  We have two amazing seminars coming that are the products of the passion, curiosity, and the enthusiasm of the instructors who are teaching them.

So, no...seminars might not fulfill a requirement in your degree (other than a general elective or a liberal arts elective), and perhaps there's nothing in them the connects to your program of study at all...but think larger than that.  There are few classes in any college anywhere where you will find a room full of people who truly chose to be there.  No one needs it, which means everyone wants it.  They don't necessarily come because they need the credit or the class or anything about it.  They come because they love the content of the course itself.  And that, my friends, is the best learning environment you will ever find.

This fall?

HON 200-90 : Games and Storytelling taught by Honors Studies Librarian, April Broughton.

HON 200-91 : Eat Me:  Food and Identity in American Culture, taught by Lori Vail of the Humanities department.

Come.  Learn.  Celebrate your own curiosity.  And, dare I say my little plants, grow.