The 2020-2021 academic year presented many challenges to honors educators, including their ability to support honors education as a community of opportunity in virtual learning environments. This study considers how remote learning platforms emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic illuminated previously underutilized resources, such as alumni. Authors…

The COVID pandemic has exacerbated structural, demographic, and financial challenges faced by American higher education institutions and their honors programs and colleges. Likewise, the Black Lives Matter movement has made plain the inequities in the higher education sector. The new "normal" post-COVID will challenge honors…

The conventional structure of most honors colleges made it difficult to deliver curricula and programming during the global health pandemic. Traditional modalities for content delivery and community building did not always adapt well to online environments. By requiring that honors students come to campus, programs have been offering a…

This pilot study describes a nascent first-year honors colloquia series using human-centered design (HCD). An interdisciplinary team of instructors redesigned the course with the intention of engaging the whole student in transformative learning and creating a curriculum that addresses problems and opportunities focused on the needs, contexts,…

Honors faculty often engage students in service-learning and community-engaged courses to help students learn curricular concepts, develop skills in responsible citizenship, and positively impact their community. Authors consider how the greatest impact honors students can have may sometimes be through bearing witness rather than through direct…

While the coronavirus crisis altered all facets of life across the globe, its impact on American higher education posed immediate challenges to students and faculty alike. Disruptions in normal, in-person instruction affected all students' abilities to connect and create, but first-year students and their professors were particularly restricted in…

Honors has long been a space for pushing boundaries and promoting culturally responsive teaching, yet students from underserved and marginalized populations rarely see themselves reflected in the designated intelligentsia of most universities. This essay considers several aspects of boundaries in, and barriers to, the honors experience. Implicit…

First-year students faced unprecedented challenges while transitioning from high school to university in fall 2020. The coronavirus crisis, economic downturn, social unrest, and a rapid and massive shift to remote learning altered their world in fundamental ways. This essay describes the response of one honors program toward providing extra- and…

Inquiry in Global Studies: Music and Politics is a regular course offering in which first-year honors students examine the social and cultural import of music in a global context. This qualitative study examines the practical and pedagogical implications of teaching music and politics during the coronavirus crisis. In a thematic, five-part series…

Despite a long tradition of social science research on educational access and barriers to inclusion for underrepresented minorities and the poor, until recently such issues have gotten relatively little attention in quantitative investigations of honors education. Public interest in educational access has grown in recent years, however, energizing…

This essay argues that in order for honors to occupy and transform the academy it must begin by transforming itself. Drawing on Homi Bhabha's notion of "third space," the author argues that the traditional epistemic paradigms in higher education are inadequate for conceptualizing the praxis-driven work required in honors. Honors should…

In considering the extent to which honors education should engage with political and social justice movements, the author argues that its programs must first reckon with their own histories and complicity within systems of domination and oppression before determining the best approach. This essay examines how the continued legacy of racialized…

Honors educators must acknowledge and respect clear boundaries between the work they do in the classroom and the advocacy they support or engage in as private citizens. Public colleges exist to prepare citizens for life in a pluralistic, democratic republic, and few limits should be placed here on what questions may be asked or which views may be…

Although honors populations occupy only a fraction of institutional enrollments, they have undeniably changed the nature of higher education. This essay considers the impact of honors on university culture, processes, and infrastructure. Touted as a "critical element" of the comprehensive college experience for both students and faculty,…

This essay examines the scope of honors scholarship and its role in creating and contributing to meaningful dialogue among practitioners. The author explores how scholarly contributions of honors educators cross boundaries to occupy the social, cultural, political, and economic conversations that shape lives and transform communities. Pointing to…