|
The Honors Program at the Maricopa Community Colleges provides intellectually stimulating learning opportunities for academically outstanding students. The features of the program include specific programs at each college, Honors courses, an Honors Forum Lecture Series addressing an annual theme, scholarships, and connections with Phi Theta Kappa.
One of the goals of the Honors Programs is to foster a climate of excellence in the colleges and in the surrounding community. Here we highlight some of the activities at the colleges that help to achieve a climate of excellence and scholarship in the District and in the community.
Chandler-Gilbert Community College
Honors students at CGCC are required to do a special project in an Honors course each semester. One of the options for Honors Projects is Service Learning. Service Learning is a unique learning experience that expands the walls of the classroom to include the community. A quality Service Learning project would be paired with a specific aspect of the course content, allowing the student to learn biology, history, sociology, criminal justice, education, etc. through a first-hand learning experience. For example, a student in a philosophy/ethics course may serve at a food bank to learn about responsibilities to community members. A biology student may work in a nursing home to learn first-hand about Alzheimer's or other developmental disorders. A math student may tutor at a local school, while an accounting student may work with the payroll personnel of a homeless shelter. There are many creative ways to incorporate Service Learning into a course. For example, a music student taught several songs to a few of her friends, and then they performed in wards of children's hospitals. The most important criterion for a Service Learning project is that the experience provides the student with meaningful learning of the course content in a hands-on manner. Students who successfully complete their Honors Service Learning project receive a certificate recognizing their community service experience.
A related option for Honors students at CGCC is to serve as a tutor in the Learning Center, or as a classroom mentor. Honors students in their 3rd or 4th semester of the program may choose to serve as a mentor in an ESL class, or as a tutor in the learning center. Tutors/mentors develop mediation, negotiation, and professional skills needed in many career fields. In addition, tutors/mentors have the satisfaction of helping others, reinforcing their own knowledge as they teach others, and improving their communication skills. The hours are flexible and the location is convenient, right on campus! The Honors Program is also cooperating with the Dean of Student's Office to provide mentoring for students who are on academic probation. It is called the Student Success Task Force.
Estrella Mountain Community College
The Estrella Mountain Community College Honors program is designed to enhance the intellectual experience of students through enrollment in Honors courses and cultural enrichment activities.
One of the most popular activities is the annual Spring Break trip to Los Angeles. The trip begins on a Friday at 5:00 a.m. with twenty students. The first stop is Venice Beach for lunch, where some of the students have an opportunity to experience the ocean for the first time. After putting their toes in the cold ocean water, the group departs for the Museum of Tolerance. The tour, which is approximately three hours, is a life-changing experience for many students. After the tour, it is on to the Getty Museum to experience some of the greatest art in the world. After a few hours at the Getty the group travels to Pasadena to stay at the Vagabond Hotel. The students are typically exhausted from such an exciting and educational day. Saturday includes a trip to the Huntington Library where students relax in the beautiful gardens, visit the art collection, and view one of the greatest private collections of books in the world.
For weeks and months to come, students are often still heard talking about this trip and sharing how much it meant to them. This is just one of many activities at Estrella Mountain that provides students with the opportunity to grow personally and academically.
GateWay Community College
The Honors Program at GateWay Community College offers some features that are unique to the college's relatively small campus. The Honors Program uses the independent-study format, which pairs faculty acting as Honors Mentors with students in a contract setting. This experience allows students greater flexibility to explore topics of interest in greater depth than possible in the traditional classroom setting. The Honors courses are reflected on the student transcript where potential employers can see the quality of the student's education.
Glendale Community College
The Glendale Community College Honors Program centers on more than thirty designated Honors courses that encourage critical thinking, thoughtful writing, and lively discussions. The Honors courses encourage interaction among students and faculty, both in and out of the classroom. This year the Glendale Community College Honors Program and the Counseling Department co-sponsored Autumn Check-in, an informal gathering of Honors Program students and faculty, to answer questions, provide support to students, and facilitate continuing interaction with faculty beyond the classroom. Through this event and many others, the Honors Program fosters a sense of community both for students within the program and campus-wide. Other campus programs sponsored by the Honors Program include Jingle Books, a holiday book give-away to local school children, and encouraged participation in the Heart Walk in February.
This spring the Honors Program will also be sponsoring a campus-wide book discussion and rolling-out our new Honors Ambassador program, which will allow Honors Program students the opportunity to serve in a unique leadership role on our campus. The Glendale Community College Honors Program is complete with the benefits of a large campus and the personal attention and stimulation of a small, enriched academic environment.
Mesa Community College
MCC, the largest college in the district, also has the largest number of Honors students. This means we are able to provide a selection of 90+ Honors sections. Some sections are concurrent offerings while others have only Honors students. One of the more unique offerings is the Physical Science colloquium, which enables students in a variety of physical science classes to develop a research presentation with a faculty mentor and then make a scholarly presentation to the other Honors students and faculty.
MCC is experiencing a growth in the number of Honors students at the Red Mountain site. Honors students at Red Mountain also have a range of options, including multi-disciplinary Honors colloquium. The MCC Honors Program is supportive of the district Honors Forum lecture series and encourages all Honors students and faculty to attend the presentations. We in the Maricopa family are extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful resource for our faculty and students.
Paradise Valley Community College
Writing a personal statement is a difficult task for most college students. However, the students in Paradise Valley Community College's Honors Program have found this to be one of the most beneficial skills they have learned. Students have used these short papers about themselves for scholarships, university applications, graduate schools, and jobs. They report back tremendous success and gratitude for the learning experience. One student recently wrote that she had been accepted into four law schools, was on the waiting list for the fifth, and knew her personal statement made the difference.
A recent innovation instituted in the Honors program is the community project for second and third year Honors Forum students. This project is intended to give students the opportunity to research, develop, and implement an activity that will provide a service to the campus or community over the period of one or two semesters. It will enable students to take leadership roles in discovering areas of need, formulating plans, and accomplishing goals. While helping the campus or community with these projects, students will be building skills that demonstrate their initiative and their ability to follow through with their ideas.
Phoenix College
Phoenix College Classical Studies Program is designed for students who want to be active learners. The program helps train students to think critically and express themselves orally and in writing. Students are not necessarily interested in becoming professional classicists, but they are interested in how the past informs the present.
As part of a learning community, classics students are encouraged to take part in learning and social activities outside of the classroom. In order to enhance the academic and personal support for students, the Classical Studies Program will begin a one-on-one mentoring process for students in the program. Students will be paired with faculty mentors who have expertise in the areas of the students' interests. In addition to this student-mentor academic relationship, mentors will be available to discuss the students' progress through the program. They will also advise the students as they explore transfer options to baccalaureate programs.
Mentors may come from any discipline. Invitations will be sent initially to Classics instructors, and then possibly to other college faculty. While there has been some mentoring in this program, the new initiative is intended to formalize the process, giving support to both mentors and students.
Rio Salado College
Consistent with the Rio Salado College's mission of non-traditional programs, Rio has adapted its Honors Program to include distance-learning students. Participants include students with disabilities, parents at home with children, students in rural areas, incarcerated students, students working full time and unable to attend traditional classes, as well as students enrolled in classes at Luke A.F.B. and other in-person sites.
This year, Preston Thymes, an Honors Program student at Rio Salado, is on of five Maricopa Community College students selected by competitive applications to participate in the Arizona Town Hall at Grand Canyon this fall. The Arizona Town Hall is a meeting of 150 of the state's top community and business leaders. For the third consecutive year, Rio Salado has had a Phi Theta Kappa student rank in the top 40, nation wide, in the All U.S.A. Academic Team national scholarships. Rio Salado's Honors Program continues to promote high academic standards and educational opportunities for its students.
Scottsdale Community College
The Guadalajara Learning Experience is a one-week intensive-learning trip available to SCC students who are members of both the Honors Program and Phi Theta Kappa. The trip is usually held the week after commencement each spring. To participate, a student must also be enrolled in the Honors Forum class either the semester prior to the trip or the semester after the trip. Accompanying the application, the student must provide an essay of no more than 750 words on the current Honors Study Topic. Approximately fifteen students are chosen to partake in this extraordinary learning opportunity. Students attend classes, take part in cultural events, and present a check to the Casa Hogar Orphanage in Guadalajara, Jalisco in Mexico. (Honors students raise money for the orphanage throughout the preceding school year.) Those students who are chosen are provided with a scholarship that includes airfare, ground transportation, hotel accommodations, and food.h
South Mountain Community College
The South Mountain Honors Program focuses on programming that incorporates the four Hallmarks of Phi Theta Kappa scholarship, leadership, service, and fellowship - into the everyday lives of our students. In June, four Honors students traveled to U.C.L.A. to attend the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Institute, a weeklong conference of lectures and seminar discussions devoted to the Honors study topic, "Popular Culture: Shaping and Reflecting Who We Are." In November, our members will co-host the Arizona Region Honors Institute with several members acting as seminar leaders. Our students have been elected to leadership positions in Student Government, other campus clubs and the Arizona Region of Phi Theta Kappa and take advantage of many leadership training opportunities on campus, throughout the district and through Phi Theta Kappa. Honors students work with other clubs to assist with major community projects, such as the Water Safety Day to be held in March. Community service activities include blood drives, the Great American Smokeout and other cancer awareness activities, work with the Sojourner Center and the Thomas J. Pappas School as well as special projects requested by our college president. This year, Honors students will assist with the United Way campaign, participate in bond awareness activities and celebrate their civic participation with a "We Voiced Our Vote" fellowship event. To encourage social interaction, Honors students are invited to dinner at Macayo's before each Forum lecture and to Honors luncheons once each semester, as well as to campus and community cultural events.
Spring Lectures
February 16, 2005
Robert Moody marks his seventh year as Associate Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony with the 2004-05 season. He leads the Symphony each year in a wide variety of concerts, including presentations of Handel's Messiah and in celebration of New Year's Eve. He serves as conductor and host for the Symphony's popular "Classical Connections" series, introducing novices and enthusiasts alike to the backstage stories and art behind symphonic music-making. As chorusmaster for The Phoenix Symphony Chorus, he prepares this 100-voice ensemble for their appearances each season.
March 23, 2005
Stephanie Coontz teaches history family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, and is the national Co-Chair of the Council of Contemporary families. A former Woodrow Wilson fellow, she has received the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for "outstanding contributions to the field of child development," and the Washington Governor's Writers Award. She has also testified before Congress about her research.
April 20, 2005
Marcyliena Morgan is Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is the founding director of the Hiphop Archive at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University. Her research has focused on youth, gender, language, culture and identity, sociolinguistics, discourse and interaction. She is the author of Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture (2002). She is currently completing a book on hiphop culture entitled The Real Hiphop - Battling for Knowledge, Power, and Respect in the Underground.
| 
