Honor's Council
By Jimmy Burt
When you think about student government, you think about Robert’s Rules of Order, several elected representatives, and students serving to give the go-ahead to the administrator’s decisions. Honors Council is nothing like that.
We meet on Monday nights. We have no elected officials—instead, we have a round-table discussion that is open to anyone that wishes to show up. If you come to the meeting, you get to have a say in what goes on in Honors. This is where we make decisions on important issues such as the Honors College Vision Statement for the college, reviewing Honors recruitment materials, and brainstorming ways for us to grow and improve as an institution. It’s not all such administrative issues, though—we also work together with the social and mentoring coordinators on planning all of the social events (Midnight Dessert, Honors Formal, Welcoming Picnic, cultural field trips, and the like). We also help with the brainstorming and selection of the Honors Common Reading Experience authors that come to campus.
Honors Council Accomplishments for this semester include:
- Organization of the upcoming trip to see Mamma Mia at Miller Auditorium in January and trip to the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in November.
- Working with Dr. Cline and Dr. Lewis on reviewing the Honors Vision Statement
- Reviewing our current recruitment process with prospective students and sending Honors Council members to present on the Institute on visitation days
- Planning our involvement in the Brighter Futures program, a community tutoring program at local elementary schools
- Working with our social coordinators, Mike Hewitt and Kara Christenson on this fall’s social events as well as some planned for next semester
- Organizing and evaluating the Labor Day weekend First Year Retreat
Upon reading this, if you feel that “Gosh, this is something that I should get involved with,” remember that we meet in the Observatory Mondays from 5:45-7:00. A gourmet meal is served at the meeting. Okay, not a “gourmet meal” per se… it’s pizza from Domino’s, but, hey, at least it’s not Baldwin… This isn’t exactly the British House of Lords in terms of formality, so if you have any interest in having a voice on the future of Honors and its programming, feel free to visit—it’s surprisingly entertaining.