George Center for Honors Studies

Intents and Deposits Coming!

Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:55:14 -0400

This has been quite a week at the George Center for Honors Studies as we begin to see the class of 2015 taking shape. Intent forms and deposits are coming in now, and the class is taking shape quite nicely. We will keep working right up through May to be sure we have the group we’ve worked so hard to get this far and will keep communicating through the summer to get new students engaged in the life of the Honors Program and Greensboro College. It is going to be an exciting summer and new year.

Just two weeks from today, we send our first group for a short-term international experience in Ludwigsburg and Berlin, Germany.

One month and a week from today (if I did the math right), we send a student to Grand Canyon/Parashant for Partners in the Parks.

Carolyn Chappell and I spoke today, and she is very excited to volunteer in the community garden on which we are working.

Yesterday, we took a group of students bowling and out for super delicious pizza when our canoe trip was cancelled due to Saturday’s storms. The students carried on to Celebration Station for go-carts, but the director abandoned for the comfort of an afternoon nap.

Just two more weeks left in the semester and so much left to do!

Two to Go!

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:39:26 -0400

This second to last week of classes is another big week for the George Center for Honors Studies.

1. We will be announcing the recipients of the first James S. Barrett Scholarships, the College’s top award for academic merit. Thanks are due to all who have participated in the process. We had an excellent pool of candidates, and the decisions have been difficult. Check back at the end of the week for the official announcement.

2. The Office of Admissions will be on the road in Raleigh and Charlotte over the next couple of days, working closely with prospective students and their families in the final stages of the decision process. This is a very important time of year, and we look forward to seeing some of you at these events.

3. Registration for the first Partners in the Parks experiences of the summer are due at the end of the week. Thus far, Sarah Lang has signed up for Great Basin in Nevada in August, and Ricki Draper has registered for Grand Canyon/Parashant at the end of May/beginning of June. Zion Canyon and Olympic have filled, so now is the time to register!

4. Tomorrow, the faculty will consider a proposal to bring students into the George Center for Honors Studies after the sophomore year. The Honors Committee has been working on the proposal for well over a year, and we hope the full faculty will support the creation of the Honors Associate Track for entering junior students.

Check the Greensboro College Honors Program FaceBook page and YouTube channel for video of Christian Russell’s presentation at SRHC last weekend. Christian has hit on the idea that will likely be a big part of his thesis project, so catch the preview now.

Honors Recruiting

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 10:01:06 -0400

March 26 was our big Honors Day, and it went exceptionally well. We had thirteen students in attendance, and they and their parents were interested and enthusiastic.

We interviewed six students for the James S. Barrett Scholarship, and the feedback has been excellent. We have a very impressive group. Others are being interviewed by faculty this week via phone and Skype.

Seven students qualified for the Honors Program attended Honors Day and seemed to be another exceptional bunch.

This year’s Honors Candidates are very strong: Average SAT: 1272; Average weighted GPA: 4.1.

Thank you to all the faculty, staff, and students who assisted with the day. Thank you, too, to Dr. Czarda and Ms. Chappell for their support. And, thank you to all the parents and students who attended. We look forward to having you here!

Check out sophomore Honors Student Christian Russell presenting...

Sat, 02 Apr 2011 07:53:26 -0400

Check out sophomore Honors Student Christian Russell presenting on superheroes at the Southern Regional Honors Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas.

And . . . we're off!!

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 22:38:00 -0400

Tomorrow’s the day: the seven lucky conference-goers will head to Little Rock for the NCHC first thing in the morning. Christian Russell presents his paper Friday morning, and the rest of us have our panel on Saturday morning.

As far as I know. All the students are currently in Charlotte, scrupulously avoiding having to leave Greensboro at 5 AM. Dr. Bird and I, however, will be on the road bright and early—or, at least, early!

I’m looking forward to a great conference and hope that everyone enjoys, stays safe, and returns invigorated.

Home Stretch

Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:50:36 -0400

If the end of March seemed busy, here’s what’s coming in April:

April 1 is the date of the annual Stream Clean of College Branch, the college’s adopted stream along its eastern border. See Dr. Bond for details.

On March 15, first-year student Ricki Draper and I worked with a number of people on campus and off to submit a grant application to the National Collegiate Honors Council to help fund our community garden in Warnersville. We are still making contacts, and the project is still taking shape, but we should hear this month about whether or not the grant will come.

April 7 is the Inauguration of Dr. Lawrence Czarda as the college’s eighteenth president. Dr. Czarda and his wife Carolyn Chappell have already proved great friends to the George Center for Honors Studies, and we look forward to this celebration of the College’s history and future.

April 16 is our spring canoe trip. Last fall, we canoed a great little section of the Haw River near Saxapahaw. We’ll see where we go this time!

April 19 is our final Food for Thought lunch of the semester. We will be discussing the Honors Thesis and focusing on the more traditional experimental sorts of projects we so often see. (This is also my brother and sister-in-law’s anniversary, so if you see them, wish them well.)

Classes end April 21! Go!

Big Weeks

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 06:54:27 -0400

The next two weeks will be busy on all fronts for the George Center for Honors Studies.

This coming Saturday, we will be hosting our recruitment day with interviews for the selection of the first Barrett Scholarships. Thus far, the response has been very positive, and I am looking forward to meeting all of the students and putting faces and personalities with their lines on the big spreadsheet.

On Tuesday, March 29, we will host our second Food for Thought lunch of the semester. Our theme will be Partners in the Parks, the program run by the National Collegiate Honors Council and the National Park Service to get Honors Students from across the country out into the National Parks for a week each summer. This year’s sites include Great Smokey Mountains, Acadia, Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, Olympic, and others. See this link for more information: http://www.partnersintheparks.org/

Tyler Beale, Dylan Wimberley, Christian Russell, Jasmine Fuller, Laura Beatty, Dr. Jennifer Bird, and I will head to Little Rock, Arkansas, for the Southern Regional Honors Conference annual meeting March 31-April 2. Christian will be presenting his paper on superheroes and identity, and the rest of us will be on a panel about creative projects in the first-year Honors courses.

Then, it’s just three weeks to go before the end of the semester!

Newsy Notes

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:54:47 -0500

A few quick news items from the George Center for Honors Studies:

1. Twenty-two students (of our total seventy) managed to have either 3.85 or higher cumulative GPA’s or 4.0 semester GPA’s at the end of fall semester. Of these, a number were in our first-year class and are to be commended for their hard work during a difficult transitional period from high school to college in a challenging academic environment. President Czarda and Carolyn Chappell kindly took these students to Bin 33 downtown to celebrate. Way to go!

2. Five students and yours truly have been accepted to present at the Southern Regional Honors Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, March 31-April 2. Congratulations to Christian Russell, Laura Beatty, Jasmine Fuller, Tyler Beall, and Dylan Wimberley.

3. The George Center for Honors Studies has created a new scholarship that will be awarded for the first time this year. The James S. Barrett Scholarship provides full-tuition equivalency plus room and board for four years for up to five incoming students. Students will be selected with input from admissions, faculty, the president, and students. We are very pleased and excited to be able to offer these awards, which are named after the college’s fourteenth president who helped establish the Honors Program in 1983.

4. Leah Tucker, a.k.a. “Ducksoup,” was accepted to veterinary school at NC State today. Her senior thesis is finished, and she now has all kinds of time for knitting stocking caps and preparing for her presentation at Alpha Chi in San Diego. Congratulations, Leah!

5. We will be hosting a recruitment day on March 26, 2011, for prospective Honors Students. This year’s applicants are especially strong, and we look forward to a good afternoon of formal and informal conversations with them.

SRHC in Little Rock

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 10:02:47 -0500

SRHC in Little Rock:

This year’s conference for the Southern Regional Honors Council is shaping up to be a good one for the George Center for Honors Studies. We have proposed a session dedicated to using creative projects in the first year of the honors program and have three groups of students interested in participating in that session. At least one other student has submitted a proposal for the conference, and we hope to see his paper through as well.

In case you are interested, the conference will be held at the historic Peabody Hotel in downtown Little Rock, which is where the link above will take you.

I, for one, am excited. Way to go students!

Beginning Again

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 10:13:30 -0500

As the new semester begins, there are several items on the programmatic to-do list for the term (in no particular order):

1. Work closely with Admissions to bring in a solid class of 40 students next fall.

2. Organize Honors Day, currently scheduled for February 19, when prospective students can come learn about the program and—one hopes—learn about scholarship opportunities.

3. Recruit current students for the Student Steering Committee, which will provide a vehicle for student input on the program.

4. Shepherd juniors through the prospectus-approval process and get them started on their theses.

5. See the final four seniors through their thesis write-ups and presentations.

6. Work with students on projects for presentation at the Southern Regional Honors Council Conference in Little Rock, Arkansas, March 30-April 2.

7. Continue to develop the curriculum and new opportunities for Honors Students.

8. Organize the big behind-the-scenes zoo trip with the Student Honors Organization.

I think that gets us to Spring Break, but I am sure there will be more. I am looking forward to a great semester!

Undergraduate Research

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:44:17 -0500

Today, tomorrow, and Saturday, four honors faculty and I will be attending a conference in Durham on Undergraduate Research. Our hope is to come back with a set of ideas that can be used to support faculty and students from the very beginnings of the research process through its ultimate culmination in the Senior Honors Thesis. Building work into the curriculum that will aid students through the writing of the thesis has become a priority as we see an increased emphasis nationally on undergraduate research for admission to graduate school. Keep watching this space for further details.

KC for NCHC

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:46:41 -0400

Having just returned from the National Collegiate Honors Council Annual Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, I can reveal a few hot trends in Honors Education around the country:

Student-driven Publications: it seems more and more Honors Programs are luring students away from their college newspapers in order to have them manage newsletters, websites, social networks, and other communications.

NING: I had never heard of Ning, but it is a new way to manage social networks and communications across platforms. Frankly, it is a lot like what we did with our web portal, but it is incredibly sophisticated and much easier to update.

Undergraduate Research: Not much new here, but I was amazed by the emphasis being put on this from a number of different angles—most notably, by senior administrators.

Integrated Admissions: A number of larger programs are seeing a great deal of success by either running their own parallel admissions process or by working seamlessly with their admissions offices. Honors Programs and Colleges have been particularly successful by using “ambassador” programs of student recruiters.

International Travel: A host of Honors Programs and Honors Colleges are pursuing their own short-term study-abroad opportunities. Northern Kentucky University, for example, will take students to Berlin for eight days this spring.

Holistic Education: My favorite presentation of the weekend: “What If Students Were People? Holistic Higher Education for the Twenty-First Century.”

Quick Updates

Wed, 20 Oct 2010 14:17:13 -0400

Thank you to Dr. Czarda and Ms. Chappell for hosting the Presidential Scholars over two nights the last two weeks. I enjoyed their company and that of the students, who I hope tried something new (at least on the food front)! Dinner off-campus is always nice, and it was good to hear of the new directions the school is heading.

Congratulations to first-year honors student-athlete Sarah Lang, who nabbed rookie of the week honors for the USASouth Athletic Conference in Women’s Soccer on the back of a hat trick against Marymount.

Josh Hudgins, junior honors student and Presidential Scholar, finished in a tie for eighth after shooting 73-71 in the Royal Lakes/Oglethorpe Fall Invitational and was the highest placed GC golfer at the tournament.

Junior Honors Students are preparing first drafts of their literature reviews for the Senior Honors Thesis Prospectus. Godspeed.

The George Center for Honors Studies will be hosting its first annual Honors Alumni and Friends Reception on October 29 from 4-5:30 PM in Jones Library in conjunction with Homecoming Weekend.

Five faculty will be participating in the American Association of Colleges and Universities Network for Academic Renewal Workshops and Conference on Undergraduate Research November 11-13.

The intrepid Director is off to the Annual Meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council in Kansas City, Missouri, October 21-23. Stay tuned for details on this year’s Partners in the Parks offerings.

The Director also managed to draw an analogy between the liberal arts and pornography—but meant it in a positive way—in front of the President and several members of the faculty. Ask me how!

In light of our lunch discussion . . .

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:24:24 -0400

In light of our lunch discussion . . . :

Special thanks to Brent Atwater and Kellie McLeod of our Career Exploration and Development Office for their presentation and discussion today. In light of their talk and my own interest in thinking broadly about the potential effects of an education—especially in Honors—I thought I would post the link above to an article that appeared in this week’s Chronicle of Higher Education. It is entitled, with no irony, “What Are You Going to Do with That?” a question I endured endlessly from sophomore year of college until I landed here in 2003. My smart response was usually, “Want fries with that?” In all honesty, I never really thought it mattered. Enjoy!

thedailywhat: SMBC. Thanks to Leah Tucker for uncovering this...

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:18:18 -0400

thedailywhat:

SMBC.

Thanks to Leah Tucker for uncovering this fine illustration of the anthropic principle—in cartoon form, no less.

New Blogger

Tue, 28 Sep 2010 10:02:41 -0400

Welcome to our newest George Center for Honors Studies blogger, Sarah Lang. Sarah is a first-year student at Greensboro College, plays on the soccer team as its center forward, and is majoring in business. Check out her blog at gcslang.tumblr.com .

New Students and Uses for Career Services

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 07:17:42 -0400

New Students and Uses for Career Services:

It’s never too early to start making use of what we once called “career services.” Brent Atwater, GC’s new full-time director in that area, has taken the bold step of changing its name to Greensboro College Career Exploration and Development in order to signal the shift in thinking and encourage students to make use of the resources—everything from interest inventories to internships—available through his office. It’s not just that it’s never too early to start thinking about a career but that there are so many possible paths to one’s future. For example:

“There are many more opportunities in the public accounting profession,” Jim Tutelman, a partner at the accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, said. “You don’t necessarily have to be an accounting major.”

By the time the stats are updated, it’s already changed, but students entering college now will likely change careers (not just jobs, but fields) five times in the course of their working lives. Many of the careers ahead don’t even exist yet—who had heard of a “web strategist” or “life coach” ten years ago?—so one might as well start thinking in terms of a wide variety of possible options and paths.

Rethinking Study Habits

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 08:58:37 -0400

Rethinking Study Habits:

This article offers a considerably different take on the best means for studying and testing to enhance retention of material. Although the jab at Gardner, et. al, up front is satisfying, the bulk of the article offers a good overview of the best means for long-term retention, i.e., learning. It seems that the old saw about starting work early and putting it aside for a period of time before returning to it was—perhaps, unwittingly—good advice.

Greensboro College 1000 for 1 Campaign

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:33:00 -0400

Greensboro College 1000 for 1 Campaign:

Greensboro College has announced its “1000 for 1” campaign to encourage students, alumni, faculty, staff, and trustees to engage in the recruiting process with us to help identify students we know would benefit from the unique experience GC provides.

The bottom line is this: for every student who enrolls at GC who was not or is not in our current pool of recruits, Greensboro College will offer $1000 credit to your student account, your annual class gift, your departmental budget, or your annual gift to GC.

The link will take you to the page that explains the details of this extraordinary opportunity.

If we all work together, we can do great things. Please, feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Catholics, Muslims, and the Mosque Controversy | The New York Review of Books

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:26:43 -0400

Catholics, Muslims, and the Mosque Controversy | The New York Review of Books:

Excellent article co-authored by a former professor of mine on the fragility of the American experiment in religious liberty.