Honors Flourishing in the Midst of Change

In the wake of formidable institutional change, and in response to administrative concerns about honors’ place within the university, authors describe the development of a pilot course that led to a program’s critical self-study and course transformations that were long overdue. Citizen Scholarship and Human Flourishing incorporates specific practices such as peer instruction and “ungrading” to align with new institutional learning objectives and broadly defined undergraduate research experiences across disciplines. The experimental course presents honors as a model for progressive curricular change in the midst of shifting administrative landscapes

Disordered Eating, Perfectionism, Stress, and Satisfaction in Honors: A Research Collaborative Investigating a Community Concern

Moved by the lived experience of an honors student, authors describe a three-year Honors and Eating Concerns Research Collaborative (2019–2022), which examines the relationship between perfectionism and eating concerns among honors students. Under faculty advisement, first- and second-year honors psychology majors (n = 5) participated in the collective, carrying out three empirical studies (producing two honors theses) and gathering data from 413 high-achieving students across the curriculum (54 identifying as honors). In survey research, the instruments used were questionnaires and interviews; measures involved four scales—Almost Perfect Scale-Revised (APSR), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TFEQ), and Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDEQ). Key findings suggest that concerns about eating, weight, and body shape are common among high-achieving students, who also experience elevated levels of perceived stress (women highest). Authors posit this faculty/ student engagement collaborative as a viable alternative to the traditional expert/ mentee model. A review of literature is provided, and implications for future study and broader appropriation are discussed

Remembering Ada Long, May 20, 1945–February 4, 2024

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s collection of essays honoring the life and work of Dr. Ada Long (1945–2024), the authors reflect on the personal and professional impact she has made in the honors experience. See https://youtube.com/live/EwdleBW1Rf8?feature=share to view the entire Celebration of Life that was held June 8, 2024

Committee as Text

I mistakenly joined the Place as Text (PAT) Committee in 2017. Perusing a list of prospective standing committees to join on the NCHC website, I had clicked on “Semesters Committee” (now “Place as Text”), having seen NCHC flyers advertising their adventurous institutes, which sounded fascinating though I had never attended one myself. Shortly thereafter I received an invitation to the committee’s June working meeting in Brooklyn that likewise sounded promising. Had I been well versed in the City as Text™ (CAT) pedagogy that undergirds PAT, I might have then done some reading, finding out more about the group and perhaps recognizing that prior attendance at one of their Faculty Institutes had historically been recommended for membership on the committee. Immersion would instead be the first CAT principle that I experienced, finding my way to Brooklyn and the recommended lodging—a hipster Even Hotel off of bustling Flatbush Avenue. I had only to walk catty-corner across Flatbush Avenue to LIU Brooklyn for our scheduled meeting. The campus proved challenging to navigate, however, prompting me to chat with several locals who directed me to an inner courtyard that provided access to our assigned building. After a flight of stairs and some back-and-forth down hallways, I found our designated corner room with eight or so congenial committee members seated around a conference table. They had wondered about my RSVP “yes” to the meeting but were open—as CAT had trained them to be—to a bewildered new member. Co-chairs Sara E. Quay and Alix Dowling Fink proved particularly amiable, capable, and in sync, modeling that CAT pedagogy engenders formidable leadership qualities. I inferred a recent change in leadership on the committee as the seasoned outgoing chair, Bernice Braid, amplified and informed our discussions throughout. I took exhaustive notes during opening conversations, jotting down CAT tenets such as “Look for contradictions, see things differently”; “Exploration, not tourism”; “See different things at the same spot”; “Become aware of your attitude toward a place”; and “Engage in experimental pedagogy through organic field exploration and self-reflective writing.” Thus began my immersion into CAT ways of learning and being—explaining a great deal, including why directions into the campus had not been clearer. This group liked to see what happens when one is a little lost

Fertile Ground: Reflections on Collaborative Student-Faculty Research in the Arts

This project grew out of mutual interests. In January of 2008, I briefly introduced myself to the students in my Honors 112 seminar, describing my most recent research on a women’s art collective that painted together in Houston, Texas, during the 1970s. That afternoon, I received an e-mail from Honors 112 student Aya Mares that was charged with enthusiasm for art as “fertile ground for change.” Mimi had told our class that she was researching the Houston art collective, the Garden Artists, because her mother had been a member. She hoped to learn more about the workings of an art collective and art’s potential healing for a group of women, some of whom suffered from poor health or depression. I, too, am quite curious about the societal healing power of art, so I emailed Mimi asking her for any art therapy resources she might have come across in her research. This is where our project began. I replied to Aya that perhaps we could combine our respective research questions—hers being particularly related to art activism, mine to art collectives, and both of us sharing a desire to study therapeutic aspects of art. We decided to submit a proposal to present on our collaborative research (which had yet to take place) at the 2008 NCHC Conference in October. Our proposal was accepted, so we gradually mapped out a research plan in which we would conduct oral histories over the summer with a variety of Maine artists, several of whom were members of art collectives

“One Singular Sensation”: Integrating Personal Narratives into the Honors Classroom

Contemporary emphases on standardization, specialization, and selectivity in higher education alienate students and teachers from their own creativity, intellectual curiosity, and personal stories. This trend runs counter to the central focus of honors on fostering a diverse, scholarly learning environment. Authors suggest that integrating student personal narratives into honors curricula reinforces its values of multiplicity, inclusivity, and meaningful learning. Using metaphorical reference to the Broadway musical A Chorus Line as a unique lens into the pedagogical benefits of such integration, this essay provides ways of incorporating and sharing personal narratives in the classroom and offers strategies to ensure that all honors students find individual connections between the material and themselves. Asserting that all students hold a unique place “on the line,” authors show how integrating their personal narratives can subvert alienation and help create the rich, variegated academic experiences that are the hallmarks of honors pedagogy

Honors Work: Seeing Gaps, Combining Gifts, Focusing on Wider Human Needs

“Honors Work: Seeing Gaps, Combining Gifts, Focusing on Wider Human Needs” describes the authors’ collaborative work with high school girls to bring Canadian activist Leigh Boyle and “The Lipstick Project” story to Maine in April, 2017. “The Lipstick Project,” which Boyle founded and directs, is a women-run volunteer organization based in Vancouver that provides free, professional spa care services to terminally ill patients. The authors contend that their collective efforts with the high school girls to organize “The Lipstick Project” events in Maine brought together a number of community constituencies in important ways, reflecting qualities and values central to honors education. The authors cite the writings of the late Samuel Schuman, a widely involved and highly respected honors administrator and teacher, for their characterization of honors education as, at its best, engaged, imaginative, and socially conscious. The authors note how, through Boyle’s visit and “The Lipstick Project” gatherings, they confronted significant and bridgeable gaps: gaps between high school girls and college women, gaps among care providers and the university community, gaps in understanding the need for creative care. They conclude that identifying and addressing notable gaps can be an excellent starting point for an honors undertaking, particularly gaps that cross disciplines, form links to the local community, and focus on broader humanist concerns. They offer their experience as a replicable model for other honors communities to consider

A Global Endeavor: Honors Undergraduate Research

Like many other universities of its kind, the University of Maine has a centralized body, the Center for Undergraduate Research (CUGR), charged with engaging motivated students in independent learning and in the creation of new knowledge. UMaine furthermore has an honors college that is likewise committed to fostering undergraduate research, particularly research that is rooted in active learning under the guidance of a faculty mentor (University of Maine Honors College Mission Statement). Consistent with national trends, UMaine highly values the work that both CUGR and the honors college do in promoting undergraduate research. UMaine’s current strategic plan lists the advancement of cutting-edge undergraduate research as one of its twelve primary objectives, and CUGR received a three-year, $300,000 presidential stimulus grant in spring 2012 that funds a number of research fellowships for students and faculty. The same strategic plan also articulates a commitment to strengthening the honors college, recognizing its similar importance in the development and implementation of novel models of undergraduate research that include preparing students for “meaningful jobs and for life” (University of Maine Blue Sky Plan 31). Though CUGR and honors both advance undergraduate research in significant ways at UMaine, we would like to argue that honors is especially well positioned to fulfill the strategic plan’s goal of preparation “for life.” On its website, CUGR contends that participation in undergraduate research will make individuals more “competitive” in a global society, which is an important objective. However, what we found through a recent honors undergraduate research experience was that honors research can make individuals more decent as well as competitive in a global society

Honors Thesis Rubrics: A Step toward More Consistent and Valid Assessment in Honors

Several recent issues of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council have devoted considerable space to questions of grading and assessing honors student work: the 2006 Forum on “Outcomes Assessment, Accountability, and Honors” (Frost et al.), the 2007 Forum on “Grades, Scores, and Honors” (Andrews et al.), and Greg Lanier’s expansive piece in 2008, “Towards Reliable Honors Assessment.” One target of assessment is the honors thesis, which is either a required or optional component of many honors programs and colleges and which poses a myriad of assessment challenges. What follows is a description and analysis of the attempt at the University of Maine Honors College to improve communication and assessment throughout the thesis process and to support both honors thesis students and the faculty members who work with them. As is often the case in honors, this initiative had an informal beginning: a chat between a professor of educational psychology, who was advising his first honors thesis student, and the dean of the honors college. THESES AND THE HONORS COLLEGE The first four UMaine honors theses were written in 1937. The honors program began as a small endeavor among liberal arts faculty members but became a university-wide initiative in 1962 and then an honors college in 2002. Even in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the number of honors theses was typically on the order of twenty or so, but numbers have steadily increased over the past decade; now at least seventy, and in some years more than eighty, students write theses annually. This dramatic growth has meant an expansion in the variety of theses, the breadth of disciplines in which theses are written, and the number of individuals involved as advisors or committee members. These increases have prompted the honors college community to consider questions of expectations and performance from a global perspective. Each student has a thesis advisor who chairs a committee of five, selected by the student in consultation with the advisor. Nearly all advisors and most committee members are UMaine faculty members; other committee members (who, for convenience, will all be referred to as faculty members) include scientific staff, faculty members at other institutions or laboratories, local professionals in private or governmental positions, and doctoral students. Following a two-hour oral defense, the committee determines the degree of honors awarded to the student: no honors, honors, high honors, or highest honors. This decision is based on the written thesis, the student’s oral presentation of the thesis, the discussion between the student and the committee about the thesis, an annotated reading list of twelve to fifteen texts significant to the student’s academic career, and discussion of the reading list

Mothers in Honors

The University of Maine’s 2012 valedictorian, honors student Rachel Binder-Hathaway, gave her graduation speech via Skype last May as she had already begun a yearlong Fulbright Scholarship in Bangladesh. Rachel was putting to use her business and economics degrees, traveling to numerous villages in an effort to determine various best practices in microfinance while also isolating ineffective program elements. She intended to help Bangladeshi women grow their own successful small businesses and thus work their way out of relentless and abject poverty. Rachel is committed to assisting these women, who would otherwise have few opportunities outside the home, to create sustainable work for themselves and, in so doing, finally achieve their full potential