Letter from the Director

Greetings from Iowa City! My honors staff colleagues and I have just returned from Fall Break to start the final push toward the end of the semester. For me, part of that final push includes welcoming you to our latest installment of the Alumni Connection.

Among the current articles, I want to first direct you to Riley Shell’s introduction of Grace Kariuki, our current graduate student intern. Grace is in the master’s program for Higher Education and Student Affairs. Grace is the third intern we have had in the program, and she has continued the tradition of expanding the Honors Program’s capacity for hosting events that connect students with each other and with the staff. 

From there, a sizable number of the articles focus on experiential learning, or ‘learning by doing.’ Experiential learning is one of two components of the Honors Program curriculum, and to graduate with University Honors, students complete 12 credits of experiential learning. Through much of the program’s history, students completed an undergraduate honors thesis or similar scholarly product. That is still an option for students, who can complete honors in their major. As you’ll read, honors in the major is overseen by academic departments. But, the Honors Program recognizes students’ investment in departmental honors requirements and allow these requirements to fulfill the entirety of the experiential learning in the program. 

However, we also recognize that experiential learning is not a ‘one-size-fits-all’ activity. Although a departmental honors project might be a perfect match for a student who plans to attend graduate school in their major field, such a project might be less relevant for a student who plans to become a nurse or begin a career with a national corporation. Because we serve students across the entire university, we recognize a wide range of activities as fulfilling experiential learning. Some of those activities highlighted in this Alumni Connection include undergraduate research, study abroad, and student leadership experience. 

Apart from experiential learning, the other articles cover a wide range of topics that touch most students in the Honors Program, from honors courses and Honors Primetime to our building, the Blank Honors Center. From my 10,000 foot view, I see a thread that runs through most of these other articles: the honors community. 

Community can be a bit of a nebulous concept, but the people you surround yourself with have an important impact on you. One example comes from studies that look at residence hall roommates who have been randomly assigned, which happens on some campuses. These studies find that your roommate has an impact on your grades: Students who have been randomly paired with a studious roommate have higher GPAs than those randomly paired with a less studious roommate.

This is the type of effect we try to leverage in the Honors Program, where hopefully each student benefits from those around them. Some of that “surroundedness” might come in an honors course or discussion, but that community could also emerge from attending an honors event or meeting others in a co-curricular activity. When I talk to high school seniors who are visiting the Iowa campus and have an interest in the program, I emphasize that the biggest value of the program is who will be their earliest and most immediate peers… and friends and roommates. (And, if that’s not enough of a selling point for these prospective honors students, I ask which class they want to be in when they’re assigned a group project: an honors class or a non-honors class. That usually makes my point.)

You’ll find support for the importance of the honors community in several of the current articles. I’ve not counted how often the words “connected” or “community” appear in the articles, but they’re there. Take, for example, a quote from 2020 graduate Madhuri Belkale in Maggie McKinney’s article about pre-law majors. Belkale said, “I was surrounded by folks who were very intellectually curious,” which sounds like community. Emily Vitosh’s article quotes current student Lynne Inouye, who noted that the program gives students “…room to connect and then to say there are writing and reading-based opportunities here, even if you’re not studying that.” Again, community and connection. 

On the themes of community and connectedness, I was happy to see that alumni also articulated those concepts. But that was not a surprise to me, because I’ve seen the direct impact that alumni have on the program, both through our work with our Alumni Advisory Board and with recent scholarships that have been created by generous gifts from alums. I’ve mentioned these scholarships in past Alumni Connection issues, and Ava Neumeier features them in the current issue.

Ava’s article was motivated, in part, by another new scholarship that has been endowed for students in the Honors Program. I’m excited to share that Michael Thomas (67BA) has generously endowed a new scholarship to support students in the program who have financial need. The road to such a gift is long, but it starts with the experiences that students have when they are in the program, and central among those experiences are the connections and community that the program facilitates.

Enjoy reading this issue! And, as always, please feel free to share your memories of the program or any questions you might have. You can email me at shaun-vecera@uiowa.edu, follow us on social media (@uiowahonors on Instagram), or join our LinkedIn group (University of Iowa Honors Program).

Sincerely,

Shaun Vecera

shaun-vecera@uiowa.edu

   Director, University of Iowa Honors Program

   Professor, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences