Dean’s List: Taking Stock

 By Lynda Coon

1. Honors Past
Reflecting on the history of this august institution during the last 150 years, I have been contemplating the complex layers of history producing the University of Arkansas. For me as a historian, I know that the first “chair” of English/history at the U of A was a woman, who taught and governed her small faculty in the late nineteenth century. For me as a dean, I have studied the historical processes creating honors across the nation and at Arkansas. Our neighbor to the south, UT Austin, is home to one of the earliest public, liberal-arts-centered honors programs, Plan II (1935). At Arkansas, honors came into being in 1954, following other post-WWII universities that added honors programs to their colleges of arts and sciences.

Sitting comfortably at the center of a liberal arts education in the 1950s, honors programs drew their political capital from the canon of classical Greek and Roman philosophy and literature, underscoring the unique heritage of the “West.” In so doing, the American curriculum took up arms to battle the Eastern Bloc and its renunciation of “enlightened” Western principles. Honors as Cold War crusader continues to haunt the legacy of colleges like ours. Is it the case that the traditional, “great-books” pedagogy still serves a new generation possessing diverse perspectives on culture and society?

The answer is: Yes … and No.

2. Honors Present
Recently, I gave an interview to the U.S. News & World Report on the question of why ambitious high school seniors should choose a public honors college over a small, liberal arts college. I was surprised how quickly the response came to me: Because our honors scholars can take a small seminar on Dante with a well-published scholar of Italian and then turn around and sign up for a lively forum on blockchain taught by the professor who wrote the book on the Internet of the 21st century.

And I believe strongly that this is indeed the case here at the U of A.

Our honors scholars give me great hope for the future of the United States. They are civic-minded and politically engaged. Even entrepreneurial. They take intellectual risks like combining philosophy with biological engineering or supply chain management with religious studies. Their vision of society is open and full of potential; their embrace of gender fluidity is palpable and refreshing. Social justice is what they demand as well as environmental advocacy. They deserve an honors education every bit as adventurous as they are.

3. Honors Future
Therefore, we need to rethink the honors curriculum of the 21st century and dispel those ghosts of the Cold War era from our classrooms while deploying ethical gems from the classical past. We need to give space to honors scholars to forge their own paths to graduation, whether they take that journey through an impressive thesis based on original research, through international education and internships, or through civic engagement and service learning. Our Honors College Futures Hub will be working on these issues during the next academic year and beyond. Our hope is to diversify the capstone experience of our students, tailoring it to their career goals and their academic strengths rather than an imagined ideal curriculum of the past.

Amazing to relate, next year, the Honors College will celebrate 20 years! An excellent time to reassess and recalibrate our honors enterprise. A sure sign that we are maturing and succeeding in our mission, is the fact that our alumni are flourishing. We are very pleased to welcome one of them, former Honors College Fellow and all-around rock star Autumn Lewis Spicher, on board as our new director of development. More to come on our 20th birthday, but we do hope to see you at one of the many special events planned this year in celebration of the UA’s Sesquicentennial. Please join us!