Congregational Honors: A Model for Inclusive Excellence

This essay proposes a conception of honors programs and colleges as sacred communities that acknowledge and embrace the unique human dignity of each of their members. Drawing on Ron Wolfson’s congregational model articulated in Relational Judaism, McMillan and Chavis’s definition of “sense of community,” and the pedagogy of educators such as Paolo Freire and bell hooks, I argue that to create a true culture of inclusive excellence, an honors program or college should not be constructed as a checklist of “exceptional experiences for exceptional students” but rather as a “community of relationships.” Leading with a student-centered, holistic focus that recognizes and cherishes the specific students served by an institution enables proactive engagement with what Richard Badenhausen has termed the “monumental demographic shifts” in higher education and expands the frequently too narrow conception of who belongs in honors. It also requires grounding our efforts in the data (from the American College Health Association and the U.S. Governmental Affairs Office, among others) reflecting that 55% of U.S. college students reported being diagnosed with or treated for an illness or disability in the past twelve months, more than 88% have felt overwhelmed, 64% report anxiety, and 30% are food insecure, while 51.7% have found academics “traumatic or very difficult.” The essay concludes by offering concrete strategies for creating authentically relational communities by ensuring that honors programs, advising, and coursework are specifically designed to recognize and welcome the diverse and complex intersectional identities of students and to address the myriad challenges they may face

Thinking Critically, Acting Justly

In October 2011, just two months after I became Director of the University Honors Program at Loyola New Orleans, my new home town was simultaneously proclaimed both “America’s Best City for Foodies” (Forbes) and the country’s “Worst Food Desert” (Lammers). The city known for beignets and crawfish, Mardi Gras and jazz, was revealed to have only one supermarket for each 16,000 residents (half the national average), with some residents traveling over fifteen miles from their homes to purchase fresh produce. In the past six years, the situation has been somewhat ameliorated by multiple farmers markets throughout the city that accept food stamps and by an urban farm movement that has been repurposing land, abandoned and overgrown since Katrina, in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish. Even so, one of six children in New Orleans experiences food insecurity, and food injustice is not the only challenge facing this city of tremendous inequities: ・ 40% of adults are illiterate; ・ 39% of New Orleans’ children live in poverty; and ・ 1 in 14 black males is incarcerated in a city where 60.2% of the population is African American. (Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world.) I emphasize my city’s inequities because Loyola, a Jesuit university located in uptown New Orleans, intertwines with its community as both a place of privilege and a point of access. Loyola, a masters-level institution, is far more diverse than Tulane, the much larger, less “artsy,” and more affluent research university next door. In 2017, Loyola was ranked #4 in the region for ethnic diversity by the U.S. News & World Report and, according to The Princeton Review, #13 in the country for race/class interaction (Loyola). Although the Loyola University Honors Program is, like many other honors programs and colleges, somewhat “whiter” than the rest of the institution (half of whose undergraduates are students of color), approximately 30% of honors students are people of color, 30% are the first in their families to attend college, and 26% are Pell-eligible. Geographically, 60% of honors students come from outside of Louisiana; some may come for our nationally ranked music industries program, knowing nothing about the city’s social justice challenges, while others may decide to come after a “Voluntourism” service or mission trip here in high school. At least 25% of honors students, however, are from the greater New Orleans area and so have experienced in some way the loss and displacement of Katrina regardless of their childhood social and economic backgrounds. More recently, a number of our students lost their homes (some for the second time) or were otherwise affected by the flooding near Baton Rouge in the summer of 2016. Now, as I write this essay, images of devastation from Houston, along with our own city’s torrential rain and dysfunctional pumps, are bringing up painful memories and raising anxiety. I suspect that my colleagues on the provost council at Loyola have turned our conversations into a virtual drinking game, betting on how quickly I will say the word “honors.” NCHC board members, in turn, may secretly promise themselves a shot each time I bring up Loyola or New Orleans. I do think my program is special, as each of us does, or at least should, but I am starting my discussion with Loyola because our story crystallizes two essential questions about honors education and social justice: first, how to engage our highestability and most motivated students in questions of justice; and second, how honors can be a place of access, equity, and excellence in higher education

Presidential Speech

My children like to say that it is dangerous to ride on a plane or even an elevator with me. They know that, at some point, after the doors have closed or the seat belts are fastened, I am going to start talking about honors. As NCHC president this past year, I have had the honor to speak with a great many people about honors and, especially, to address the false dichotomy between “high ability” students, on the one hand, and those who have “high financial need” or are considered in some way “high risk”—students who are from low-income families or underrepresented groups or who have disabilities or who are first in their families to attend college. In airplanes and on elevators and on campuses and in organizational offices, I like to tell folks that NCHC member institutions are public and private, secular and faith-based, two- and four-year, R1s and PUIs. They are HBCUs and HSIs. They are in The Netherlands and China and Siberia and Alaska and Boston. Honors students come from all academic disciplines and are citizens, undocumented, first-generation, and veterans. They are LGBTQA, as well as Straight, they are cisgender, transgender, and non-binary, and they represent the full spectrum of racial and ethnic diversity in this country

Thinking Critically, Acting Justly

In October 2011, just two months after I became Director of the University Honors Program at Loyola New Orleans, my new home town was simultaneously proclaimed both “America’s Best City for Foodies” (Forbes) and the country’s “Worst Food Desert” (Lammers). The city known for beignets and crawfish, Mardi Gras and jazz, was revealed to have only one supermarket for each 16,000 residents (half the national average), with some residents traveling over fifteen miles from their homes to purchase fresh produce. In the past six years, the situation has been somewhat ameliorated by multiple farmers markets throughout the city that accept food stamps and by an urban farm movement that has been repurposing land, abandoned and overgrown since Katrina, in the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish. Even so, one of six children in New Orleans experiences food insecurity, and food injustice is not the only challenge facing this city of tremendous inequities: ・ 40% of adults are illiterate; ・ 39% of New Orleans’ children live in poverty; and ・ 1 in 14 black males is incarcerated in a city where 60.2% of the population is African American. (Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world.) I emphasize my city’s inequities because Loyola, a Jesuit university located in uptown New Orleans, intertwines with its community as both a place of privilege and a point of access. Loyola, a masters-level institution, is far more diverse than Tulane, the much larger, less “artsy,” and more affluent research university next door. In 2017, Loyola was ranked #4 in the region for ethnic diversity by the U.S. News & World Report and, according to The Princeton Review, #13 in the country for race/class interaction (Loyola). Although the Loyola University Honors Program is, like many other honors programs and colleges, somewhat “whiter” than the rest of the institution (half of whose undergraduates are students of color), approximately 30% of honors students are people of color, 30% are the first in their families to attend college, and 26% are Pell-eligible. Geographically, 60% of honors students come from outside of Louisiana; some may come for our nationally ranked music industries program, knowing nothing about the city’s social justice challenges, while others may decide to come after a “Voluntourism” service or mission trip here in high school. At least 25% of honors students, however, are from the greater New Orleans area and so have experienced in some way the loss and displacement of Katrina regardless of their childhood social and economic backgrounds. More recently, a number of our students lost their homes (some for the second time) or were otherwise affected by the flooding near Baton Rouge in the summer of 2016. Now, as I write this essay, images of devastation from Houston, along with our own city’s torrential rain and dysfunctional pumps, are bringing up painful memories and raising anxiety. I suspect that my colleagues on the provost council at Loyola have turned our conversations into a virtual drinking game, betting on how quickly I will say the word “honors.” NCHC board members, in turn, may secretly promise themselves a shot each time I bring up Loyola or New Orleans. I do think my program is special, as each of us does, or at least should, but I am starting my discussion with Loyola because our story crystallizes two essential questions about honors education and social justice: first, how to engage our highestability and most motivated students in questions of justice; and second, how honors can be a place of access, equity, and excellence in higher education

Presidential Speech

My children like to say that it is dangerous to ride on a plane or even an elevator with me. They know that, at some point, after the doors have closed or the seat belts are fastened, I am going to start talking about honors. As NCHC president this past year, I have had the honor to speak with a great many people about honors and, especially, to address the false dichotomy between “high ability” students, on the one hand, and those who have “high financial need” or are considered in some way “high risk”—students who are from low-income families or underrepresented groups or who have disabilities or who are first in their families to attend college. In airplanes and on elevators and on campuses and in organizational offices, I like to tell folks that NCHC member institutions are public and private, secular and faith-based, two- and four-year, R1s and PUIs. They are HBCUs and HSIs. They are in The Netherlands and China and Siberia and Alaska and Boston. Honors students come from all academic disciplines and are citizens, undocumented, first-generation, and veterans. They are LGBTQA, as well as Straight, they are cisgender, transgender, and non-binary, and they represent the full spectrum of racial and ethnic diversity in this country

Assessing Social Justice as a Learning Outcome in Honors

Whether at public or private, secular or faith-based institutions, questions of social justice and civic engagement are an increasing focus of attention in honors education. The emphasis on modes of learning that are, in the terms of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s 2014 “Definition of Honors Education,” “measurably broader, deeper, or more complex” has encouraged the enhancement of experiential opportunities, including the exploration of “enduring questions” through service-learning, immersion experiences, and community-engaged research. Such opportunities play an important role in the holistic view of student development that is a general hallmark of honors education. If honors is, in part, about enriching a student’s worldview by providing a unique educational experience, then understanding the “self” as an inhabitant of larger social institutions should be a significant part of that education