Director's Welcome
Greetings – the summer whizzed by and we are scampering through the early fall. During the summer we had the chance to meet all of our incoming students and sent them off with David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy, our pick for the Honors First Year Reading Project and the larger university-wide First Pages initiative. In choosing the book, fifty students joined us as Honors Readers and three students served with faculty and staff on the First Pages committee. Efforts from both groups helped us hone in on a great choice. After we booked Sheff for September, he was named one of the 2009 Time 100 – people who are recognized on a number of fronts. Sheff was recognized for this contribution in the Scientists and Thinkers category. Special thanks to Associate Director Lauren Pouchak and the students on the First Pages Committee: Justin Alves, Sam Sokup and Rachel Regonni for their contribution.We will begin to rustle up some nominations and a new group of Honors Readers and student reps for the First Pages Committee in early November – look for the announcement!
I’m going to claim that we broke the record for number of upper class volunteers that assisted us this past September for Welcome Week – maybe we even hit a Guinness World record: 138 volunteers for our class of 300 new students. There were so many purple Honors t-shirts floating around campus that President Aoun requested one! Way to go – thanks for your positive energy and great mentoring of the newbies to campus. Rumor has it that upper class competitive juices got rolling when we introduced our new honors Welcome Week Event – the Amazing Race Honors Style. Everyone made it back to campus safe and sound and 6 teams walked off with dinner at The Cheesecake Factory (I have noticed no invitation to join in these festivities!).
In a third year tradition, we have try to capture the essence of our program and the larger National Collegiate Honors Council mission with our course Enhancing Honors 101 – 300 students, 52 upper class mentors and meetings once a week have kept us hopping so far this semester. Mentors led Walkabouts throughout the city in early October – we’ve heard great reviews. Our focus this term is on the memorable concert given at 'the Garden' by James Brown on April 5, 1968, the night after the Martin Luther King assassination. We’re using James Sullivan’s bio, The Hardest Working Man: How James Brown Saved the Soul of America. And we are immersing ourselves in the tumult of the times including discussions of the desegregation of Boston’s schools. Thanks to the help of our Graduate Assistant Colleen Cronin who is managing all this at our end.
This fall, our Honors Interdisciplinary Seminars are jammed – our Writer in Residence Michael Patrick MacDonald has returned to teach about writing about social justice issues, and two new courses, one on leadership and the 1960s and the other on law, ethics and Wall Street are being offered along with several other seminars. Be sure to check out the offerings for next semester. Our First Year Inquiry Series is also moving along – a new course in the spring will be taught by Professor Leonard Brown on Movement Music. Along with the seminars and the Inquiry series, we are offering about 120 courses this year – something for everyone we hope.
We are still moving along with our usual faire – Pizza and Profs, pre-concert dinners and tickets, working on fellowship advising, and more. The Honors Student Council is running a series of fall events including hosting the Pizza and Profs nights and continuing the Honors Book Club under the careful stewardship of Sandy Rago – their first pick is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Think of joining them for the next round. And be sure to look for upcoming ticket offerings including The Nutcracker.
Our Associate Director Sheryl Mayuski is shepherding along a new initiative – Honors Ambassadors – 18 students strong – who will be helping during fall and spring recruitment events. We also have just completed a day long Leadership Training event for 30 students who had nothing but raves after the experience. Join me in welcoming our new Graduate Assistant Victoria Schroeder, who is learning the ropes, updating the web pages and preparing for the advising season. And as always, our own As The World Turns experience relies on the organization of Carol DiCecca – keeper of the Honors Program front line.
Let us know if there is anything we can do – stop by, the door is open - Maureen