Honors Recognition Ceremony

This years SAU Honors Graduate Recognition Ceremony had a wonderful turn out! Students received a warm welcome from Dr. Wilson.

Students were congratulated for their years of hard work and received their Honors College Medallion. They were also given the opportunity to win some wonderful door prizes including the beautiful table donated by Ivan Smith.  

Thank you to the SAU faculty and staff that helped put it all together and congratulations students! 

 

New Honors Courses Following Covid

 New Full Honors Courses Following Covid 

Welcome 

Dr. Connie Wilson welcomed our soon-to-be graduates on Sunday, April 6, 2025. She gave them some good advice and brought them some SAU Foundation t shirts. 

I followed her and thanked Dr. Antoinette Odendaal and Mrs. Lynndon Watson for the work and effort they put in to make our 2025 Recognition Ceremony a success. 

Thanks also went to Ivan Smith for donating a nice sidepiece, Mulekick for two $25 gift certificates, Backyard BBQ for 2 $25 gift certificates, and to Walmart for two $20 gift certificates.  

What follows is the text of my remarks. 

Covid 

As if we don’t remember back five years. Three of us, two SAU faculty members and an honors student, had just presented at an international meeting in Havana and were returning home next day. Little did we realize the changes awaiting us as we sipped Bucanero Fuerte beers on the porch of the Hotel Presidente gazing at the former Gulf of Mexico. 

Back 

The virus hit the fan shortly later. SAU closed long enough for faculty to scramble to convert to online instruction. Previously, I had sworn, literally, never to teach an online course. Now I had to do so. However, my conversion to online was easier than most because I had long used my own web pages as outlines for my in class lectures. I just beefed them up, nearly to the point of textbooks, learned enough BlackBoard, and made my tests open book and open notes. Now, I regularly teach online and I like it. It is different than face-to-face teaching, for sure. It is funny, I have met several of my online students after they have completed my online courses. One such meeting took place at a restaurant cashier check out! 

Changes 

Six feet spacing, masks, hand washing, isolation all followed. Other changes included the SAU Budget and that affected the Honors College. The administration had to estimate how to make ends meet. Travel was an immediate casualty in all budgets. That was especially troublesome to the Honors College because we had worked hard to make travel a more integral part of the honors experience. Much of that travel was stateside: Boston, Denver, Seattle, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Kansas City just to name some of the destinations associated with the annual meetings of the NCHC (National Collegiate Honors Council). But, we traveled internationally too. Six trips to Cuba, group trips to Paris and to Italy along with individual students visiting Mexico, London, and China. Only now have we recovered from that Covid imposed isolation. Another loss was to our original suite of full honors courses. We offer two types of courses. The full honors courses are smaller and only register honors students. They are financially inefficient and they were funded out of the budgets of the colleges offering them. You can see the connection to their demise and the Covid related budget shortfalls.  

What were those courses? They included regularly offered sections of  US History, Philosophy, General Psychology, and World Literature. They also included one off courses. So, after Covid the Honors College was left only offering contract honors courses. Those courses are regularly offered courses in which honors students and faculty contract to elevate the course to honors level. For example, in honors Human Genetics, honors students used to receive a 23 and Me Kit. With it, they would swab their cheeks and send that sample to the company. That was the elevation. They got to identify their own genome then make and oral and written report on it. As you may have heard, the 23 and Me company has gone bankrupt and many worry that the genetic data they collected will no longer be private. Any new owner could make that data public is the fear. The Web is full of advice now on how to have one’s genetic data deleted. Of course, we did not anticipate such a turn of events.  

So, the Honors College was stuck only offering contract courses for several years following Covid. Some well-funded private colleges only offer full honors courses, an ideal solution. Being a public college and recovering budget-wise, SAU did not have that option. But, the Honors College and the administration still yearned to restore full honors courses. Recently, that actually happened. 

The New Full Honors Courses 

It was obvious to Dr. David Lanoue, SAU’s Provost, and to the Honors College’s staff and faculty that full honors courses needed to be reinstituted. The problem was money, primarily. Recall that our previous suite was funded by the departments offering the courses, not the Honors College. Dr. Lanoue offered to pay out of his budget for a new set of full honors courses. The idea was to offer full honors courses that would appeal to honors students and that would be created and taught by honors faculty. The first course, Ancient Egypt was offered in Fall 2023. It was taught by Dr. Svetlana Paulson, a veteran honors faculty member who has been with the Honors College since its founding. Understand, these courses needed to pay for themselves. What that means is that if they enroll eight or more students they are at least breaking even within the SAU budget. 

In the Spring semester of 2024 we offered two full honors courses. Dr. Krista Nelson, a renowned scholar offered the Psychology of Serial Killers. As you might imagine, that course far exceeded its minimum required enrollment of eight. That course resulted in a publication as well with many of the honors students receiving authorship credit. The other course offered that semester was Sustainability of Natural Resources. It was offered by Kathryn Watson and I audited the class myself. One reason I did so was to add to the enrollment total. The course only had four students and Dr. Lanoue graciously allowed the course to make, given that Nelson’s course had so many students. Taken together, the two courses earned SAU a little money. 

In the fall of 2024, SAU newcomer, Brianna McCartney offered Positive Psychology. According to the APA, positive psychology is  “a field of psychological theory and research that focuses on the psychological states (e.g., contentment, joy), individual traits or character strengths (e.g., intimacy, integrity, altruism, wisdom), and social institutions that enhance subjective well-being and make life most worth living.”  Positive Psychology is the most popular course at Harvard. It teaches students how to be happy. As you might imagine, McCartney’s enrollment was large. Again, the course gave birth to a publication. 

This current semester, the Honors College filled three full honors courses! Two of them are a little unusual. Nathan Lambert is teaching honors students how to make an electric guitar. He suggested to us that he has built several guitars himself and that, maybe, students would like to do the same. Here, and with the next course, we actually had to hold enrollment at 10 students. The guitars start out as kits and students learn about guitars, music, and craftsmanship. At the end of the course they will hold a guitar concert! 

The other unusual course is 3D printing. There, Dr. Hayder Zghair is teaching honors students of any major the ins and outs of fabricating 3D plastic items. He is using five 3D printers purchased by the Honors College so that the two students can share a printer. 

There’s more. McCartney, Lambert, and Zghair are co-authors of a submission to NCHC’s 2025 meeting in San Diego along with Dr. Odendaal and myself. Should our proposal be accepted, we will present much of the same information I am imparting to you right now to our fellow honors colleagues from around the world. Fingers crossed. 

The other full honors course offered this semester is World Literature II. Dr. Shannin Schroeder, another long-term veteran professor of the Honors College took it upon herself to offer, once again, one of the courses from our original suite of honors courses. I like that she has brought one of our original full honors courses back. 

For the Fall 2025 semester we are now registering students for Ancient Greece, taught by Paulson, General Psychology, taught by McCartney, and Poverty in America, taught by Amber Overhauser. We are confident all three will make. 

Conclusion 

Yes, Covid was bad, horrible, and earthshaking. But, like the old saw, “There is a silver lining in every cloud.” Thanks to our provosts, Lanoue and Robin Sronce, we now have a new set of full honors courses. We are also offering again courses from our original suite. Having these full honors courses makes our program all the stronger.