In This Issue...
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100 Acts of Service Ends Soon! |
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100 Acts of Service
Include your Honors Program for Recognition by Nov. 6!
Is your honors program or college participating in a service project in 2022? Share details of your project with NCHC to help us celebrate 100 Acts of Service in recognition of 100 Years of Honors!
We are collecting and promoting the many service projects your honors programs and colleges are creating in 2022 - and will highlight these projects both at the end of this year! Also take part in the Student Service Project at the Annual Conference in Dallas - spaces are still available for both students and faculty!
This collective will serve as inspiration for successful service projects to be developed in the future, and a tapestry of the beautiful ways honors education inspires students to connect with their peers and the world around them. We're already seeing amazing projects roll in, and can't wait to see yours added to the mix!
To participate, simply fill out the short form at the link below to tell us about your service project - what you're doing and who it benefits, along with a photo or two of your event.
Let's shout from the rooftops in 2022 about all the good work honors does on our campuses and beyond!
Submit Your Service Project by November 6!
NCHC22
The NCHC22 App is Here!
NCHC22
Call for NCHC22 Poster Judges
If you are a faculty member, honors director, or dean attending the Dallas conference, please consider devoting less than two hours of your time to serving as a judge for the student poster competition in one of the categories listed below. The Student Poster session is the main mechanism through which students participate in our annual conference and judging posters is a wonderful way in which to interact with students and give them feedback. Please contact Mike Sloane at sloane@uab.edu providing him with your areas of expertise and judging category preferences. (see below)
Judges must be available to review posters and talk with about 8-12 student presenters between 3pm-5pm on Friday, November 4 at the NCHC conference in Dallas. Before committing to a particular session, presenters should check the time(s) of their own presentation(s) to make sure they are available for the student poster session period. Judges interact with students and submit ratings at the end of the session. There is also an option to provide anonymous written feedback, which will be returned to the presenter.
We need judges in the following poster groupings at the following times:
Friday November 4, 3:00pm-5:00pm
1. Arts & Humanities
2. Arts & Visual Media
3. Diversity
4. Education & Pedagogy
5. Social Justice
6. Environmental Sciences
7. Social & Behavioral Sciences
8. Business, Engineering, & Computer Science
9. Health Sciences
10. Natural Sciences & Mathematics
Please contact Mike Sloane at sloane@uab.edu and indicate: a) your first and second category preference; b) your academic discipline and areas of expertise.
Call for Student Fishbowl
Dear honors friends,
I am Jim Ford, and I am Co-Chair (with John Zubizarreta) of the Teaching & Learning Committee. Every year we sponsor the Student Fishbowl, a signature NCHC event in which a group of students from different honors programs and colleges have an honest conversation about their experience in honors—what they love, and what they don't. It's time for me to recruit students for the Fishbowl. I want to find a diverse group of eight outstanding honors students to participate.
The Fishbowl is a tradition, and one of my favorite sessions at the conference. A group of students sit in a circle in the center of the room, facing each other, with a larger group of faculty, staff and other students seated around them. The student "fish" have a conversation with each other about honors, answering a series of questions about their own honors experience—what they love about honors, and what they might change. It's a fascinating conversation, and one that new honors directors are often encouraged to attend.
I ask you to recommend one student for the panel. These should be students that are definitely attending the conference, and that you believe would present an interesting perspective on honors. Please send me a name and email address for any potential students by October 17 so that I can begin assembling the group. I hope to get a balance of majors, backgrounds, kinds of programs/colleges represented, etc. I will email the students selected to let them know you have recommended them, ask them if they are willing, and let them know everything they need to know. The Fishbowl itself will be on Friday, November 4th at 10:00 a.m.
I would love to have one of your students in the Fishbowl this year. Either way I hope you will join us in Dallas, and at the Fishbowl. Thanks for your help.
Thanks,
Jim
NCHC22
Call for Student Moderators
#NCHC22 will be filled with opportunities to learn, engage, share, and make meaningful connections. Students can make the most of their conference experience by volunteering as a session moderator! This is a great way to network and lead in our honors community. (Training will be provided.)
Student Moderators are assigned to conference sessions upon review of a student’s application to participate. Responsibilities of Student Moderators include—but are not limited to—the following:
- Arriving early to assigned General Session room
- Ensuring the presentation room is set up correctly
- Introducing session presenters
- Keeping track of time for each presentation
- Reminding presenters of time frames
- Encouraging and facilitating discussions following each presentation
If you are interested in serving as a Student Moderator at #NCHC22, please fill out an application below. Before you fill out the application, please reach out to your honors director, and verify that your institution will be paying for your conference registration, as well as your travel/lodging in Dallas.
If you are also a conference presenter, there is a section of the application to indicate the time/date of your scheduled presentation(s). Times for #NCHC22 presentations are available in the mobile app; please wait until you find out your scheduled presentation time to complete your application.
Student Moderator Application
CAT:Dallas Master Class
City as Text™ Dallas Master Class EXTENDED to September 30!
Join in an opportunity for faculty with prior City as Text™ experience (through an NCHC Faculty Institute or its Annual Conference) to engage in an intensive exploration of Dallas prior to the 2022 Annual Conference. One of the largest and most populated urban areas in America, Dallas has, in the last several decades, reimagined and reconstructed itself and its spaces. With attention to culture, arts, history, and urban design, participants will explore downtown, Deep Ellum, the Design District and everything in between to discover Dallas in the 21st century. Participants will engage in the principles of site-based experiential learning with the intent of taking home a deeper understanding of City as Text™ principles as well as developed ideas for course- and program-level applications.
Member Cost: $675
Deadline to Register: September 30!
Register for CAT:Dallas
2022 Fall Portz Grants
Fall Portz Grant applications are now open through September 28.
If you are seeking to infuse some energy in your honors program with an innovative project, NCHC wants to assist you in making your dream a reality!
The NCHC Awards & Grants Committee invites interested NCHC institutions and professional members to submit an application for an NCHC Portz Grant. These grants are intended to support honors program/college innovation and can be small (up to $500) or large (up to $1,500)!
Apply Today!
NCHC Events: Virtual Roundtables
Sign up for a free Virtual Roundtable in 2022 to dive deep with your NCHC Community!
These free virtual events are presented by NCHC Committees, and available for all in the honors community to participate in! Add these to your calendar today:
- Discussions of Reproductive Justice (NCHC Diversity & Inclusion Committee)
Thursday, September 29
- Making the Case for Honors: On Campus and Beyond (NCHC Advocacy Committee)
Tuesday, October 11
- Building Pipelines for Study Abroad & International Fellowships (NCHC Major Scholarships Committee)
Friday, December 9
NCHC Awards
Congratulations to our 2022 Teaching Excellence Award Winners!
2022 Ron Brandolini Award for Excellence at a Two-Year Institution
Dr. Ryan Diehl, Hutchinson Community College
.jpg "Photo Credit: Bill Wolak")
Ryan Diehl, Director of Honors and recognized by Hutchinson Community College twice as the Educator of the Year, has been named this year’s Ron Brandolini award winner.
A leader in local, regional and national honors, Diehl shares his passion for the honors community through mentorship, committee leadership, and conference facilitation. His nominators referenced his ability to include them in numerous projects, maintaining connections and communications with other two-year college directors during the pandemic, at a time when many other social opportunities were interrupted.
Diehl’s commitment to honors and the success of his students is represented in his own body of research. Diehl recently completed his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Higher Education, where his dissertation examined how honors programs at two-year institutions can provide a pathway to success for first generation students.
Please join us in Dallas to recognize Dr. Ryan Diehl, recipient of the 2022 Ron Brandolini Award for Excellence at a Two-Year Institution.
2022 Sam Schuman Award for Excellence at a Four-Year Institution
Dr. Gregory O'Dea, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Gregory O’Dea, Associate Dean of the Honors College at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and “champion of student and faculty development,” has been named this year’s Sam Schuman award winner.
A significant force on the UTC campus, O’Dea collaborates tirelessly with faculty, providing recommendations and guidance for the innovation and design of honors syllabi. His talent for recognizing the possibilities for these creative ideas has resulted in seminars that continue to grow support for the honors college from across campus.
O’Dea has spent a career developing and contributing to the honors culture at UTC. His compassion and dedication to students’ senior thesis experiences are further characterized by UTC Honors’ 90% thesis completion rate. His ability to “cut through students’ veils” - with vision, passion, wit, and accessibility – provides students with great ideas.
Please join us in Dallas to recognize Dr. Greg O’Dea, recipient of the 2022 Sam Schuman Award for Excellence at a Four-Year Institution.
Dates and Deadlines
Take note of these upcoming important dates for NCHC members!
| September 28 | Fall Portz Grants Deadline |
| September 29 | Free Virtual RT: Discussions of Reproductive Justice |
| September 30 | CAT:Dallas Registration Deadline |
| October 17 | Student Fishbowl Participant Deadline |
| November 6 | 100 Years of Honors Service Projects Deadline |
Call for JNCHC Submissions
The next issue of JNCHC (deadline: March 1, 2023) invites research essays on any topic of interest to the honors community.
The issue will also include a Forum focused on the theme “Regime Change in Honors,” in which we welcome perspectives, insights, and analytical narratives about the impact that changes in higher administration have on the success or hardships of honors. We invite essays of roughly 1000-2000 words that consider this theme in a practical and/or theoretical context.
The lead essay for the Forum is by John Zubizarreta, Director Emeritus of the honors program that now bears his name at Columbia College, South Carolina. In “A Defiant Response to Regime Change,” Zubizarreta describes the perils and possibilities that new higher administrators can create for honors programs and colleges. He lays out a range of potential advantages, problems, and responses, suggesting ways that honors directors and deans can make the best of peremptory change or, when necessary, resist it. His focus is always on the well-being of the students, the program or college, the staff, the faculty, the honors administrators, the institution, and, above all, the quality and integrity of education. The backbone of Zubizarreta’s essay is his narrative of the prolonged, tortuous, and eventually successful resistance and revitalization of honors he led at Columbia College with the help of a former president and advocate of honors, along with his colleague who succeeded him as director and scores of loyal alumnae and friends.
Contributors to the Forum on “Regime Change in Honors” may, but are not obliged to, respond directly to Zubizarreta’s essay. Questions that Forum contributors might consider include:
- Describe (or imagine) a strategy for responding to a difficult regime change and suggest how other honors administrators might adapt such a strategy.
- Was Zubizarreta’s resistance worth the emotional toll it took on him and his program? Would it have been worthwhile even if it had failed? Why?
- In adopting a strategy of accommodation or resistance, does being a dean rather than a director provide greater or lesser freedom of choice?
- Imagine a situation where a university or college president demands that the honors program establish a minimum SAT score in order to look competitive in a regional or national context, a mandate that would virtually eliminate the racial diversity of the program. How could a director best respond to such an official directive?
- How should an honors director or dean respond to the growing institutional and national trends to scale back or even eliminate academic programs that are deemed unnecessary toward earning a job-ready degree?
- What role can site visits and external program reviews play in resisting threatening administrative plans for honors?
- When is it fair (or not) for an honors director or dean to involve students in a struggle with higher administration?
- Recount a regime change that has presented you with challenges and describe how you responded. In retrospect, how would you evaluate the effectiveness and integrity of your response?
Information about JNCHC—including the editorial policy, submission guidelines, guidelines for abstracts and keywords, and a style sheet—is available on the NCHC website.
Please send all submissions to Ada Long at adalong@uab.edu.
NCHC journals (JNCHC and HIP) and monographs are included in the following electronic databases: ERIC, EBSCO, Gale Cengage, and UNL Digital Commons. Both journals are listed in Cabell International's Directory of Publishing Opportunities.