| From
Kogod to Bolivia to Middle Earth, honors program sparks excitement BY
SALLY ACHARYA When
today’s students arrive at AU they bring a lot of things: curiosity,
computers, CD collections. At least 15 percent also bring eyebrow-raising
SAT scores topping 1425 and high school GPAs of 3.85. These are
the students in the University Honors Program. It’s
always been an honor to be an AU honors student, but in the past
several years, the program and its students have been on a fast
track to national prominence. The program now has one of the most
extensive and varied offerings of honors courses in the country.
Only
a few years ago, there were no more than four honors colloquia a
semester at AU. Now there are as many as 16, and those are just
the courses created specially for honors students. About 130 courses
now offer honors sections, and this spring will bring a major enhancement
to the program as upper-level business courses at Kogod join the
mix. While
the liberal arts have long been well populated by honors students,
an increasing number have been enrolled at Kogod as well, and now
they’ll be able to take upper-level business courses in honors
sections each term. That’s
just one of the signs of a program on the rise. The past two years
also brought a 50 percent increase in SAT scores of incoming students,
and a similar increase in high school GPAs. “What we would
like to think is that we have created an environment that makes
this a very attractive alternative to talented students across the
country and across the world,” said Michael Mass, director
of the University Honors Program. One
popular new feature began in spring 2003 with a course on Prague
that started like any other honors class, with lectures, readings,
and discussions—but then provided a closer perspective on Czech
history, music, cinema, and architecture with a spring break trip
to Prague itself. Last year, honors students made a similar exploration
of Berlin, with one ambitious student even doing classwork in German.
This year students will be immersed in Bolivia. Most
of the courses offered through the honors program are honors-only
sections of existing courses, with 12 to 15 students and “hand-picked
professors,” in Mass’s words. “What we do is to get
the very best faculty and get them to teach courses they’re
passionate about, that they’ve just finished writing books
about, where they’re known nationally or internationally. It
may very well be that these passions are not confined by departmental
structure.” One
example would be a course on Darwinism offered last spring. It didn’t
have just one professor; it was taught by two biologists, an anthropologist,
a psychologist, and a literature professor. In
the experience of Stacy Aldinger ’07, who came to AU from Honolulu,
“They’re so excited, and the students are so excited—it
gets a really great dynamic in the classroom of passion and passion,
and it just all explodes.” Since many honors students live
together in the residence halls, classroom discussions may continue
until 2 a.m.
A little over 15 percent of AU’s students qualify for the program,
entering as freshmen after excelling in high school or joining later
through first-rate college work. Honors’ students are typically
double majors who find the energy not just for those 2 a.m. discussions
but for jobs and volunteer work. Many build time into their crammed
schedules to mentor third-grade students each Friday at Stanton
Elementary School in southeast Washington, D.C., and are currently
recording a “listening library” of books on tape for students
who may not otherwise get bedtime stories. The Stanton youngsters
also visit AU in the spring. Evidently
news of the University Honors Program has even spread to Middle
Earth and a galaxy far, far away. The program regularly hosts pizza-fueled
debates such as “Church vs. State” and “Preemptive
Strike: Justified or Not,” but on one lighter day, the debate
title was “Gandalf vs. Yoda.” The “debate to the
death” featured SIS professors Patrick Jackson as Yoda and
Mark Walker as Gandalf. It
was a hit. One student chatting on a Web board even crowed to fellow
posters: “Look what they’re having at my school . . .
Sidenote: Gandalf would so win.” (The student carefully
added—just in case anyone not quite sharp enough for honors
got the wrong idea—that AU also had talks that week on economic
policy, war crimes, and women in international security.) Gandalf
won, by popular vote. Luke and Leia might not like the results,
but at least they can agree it was an honorable match. |
