Students enrolled in the Catawba College Honors Program study “the big questions,” says Dr. Norris Feeney, Associate Director of the program and now in his fifth year as a faculty participant.
For the 10 percent of the Catawba student body who participate in the Honors Program, as well as the faculty instructors, this means working with folks beyond their discipline, says Feeney. Participants graduate from Catawba with “an ability to think from multiple perspectives beyond their primary field of study,” he says.
“Think of advancements in various fields,” says Feeney. “It’s not just technical training that drives advancements, but these come from someone who also understands what shapes human behavior and how to communicate and connect with a diverse cross-section of people.”
The Honors Program fosters a value for of lifelong learning, focused on critical thinking for creative problem-solving, he says.
Participants search for answers to judgment questions. They dive into “big question” discussions as they relate to their majors, Feeney says, such as: What is the good life and how do we get it? How do we build knowledge?
Feeney, Associate Professor of Politics, particularly enjoys working with students completely out of his field, such as students majoring in natural science. For instance, a student interested in infectious diseases will do her senior project this year on pandemics and how infectious diseases impact societies. It’s timely, and also noteworthy that the student planned the project before the current COVID-19 pandemic intensified.
The senior project of each student and the educational experiences connected to international travel are big draws for the program.
A $2 million endowment at Catawba ensures students the ability to travel internationally and domestically, participate in undergraduate research and present their work at professional conferences, engage in service learning, and provide service to the community, says Dr. Forrest Anderson, Associate Provost and Professor of English. Catawba will co-host the Southern Regional Honors Council Conference next spring and host the North Carolina Honors Association Conference in 2021, according to Dr. Maria Vandergriff-Avery, Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Sociology.
Recent projects have sent Catawba Honors students to Cuba, Greece, Italy, Poland, and Germany. A course in genocide was made real with visits to European cultural sites that chronicle the rise and fall of World War II concentration camps.
To be invited to participate in the program, students must achieve high standardized test scores and grades.
Feeney, in his new role as Associate Director, plans to assist in the development of new course offerings, often taught by teams of professors, and offer additional support to both students and faculty on the all-important senior thesis projects.
The search for “the answers to the big questions” through turning over these enduring puzzles and approaching them from multiple angles is core to the program.
A student this year is looking at ethnic conflicts in the world – where they lead to civil wars and where they don’t. “This project spans sociology, politics, and economics to understand a bigger question of why we have war,” Feeney says.
A music major is looking at children of immigrants and how music and films shape their idealized vision of their parents’ or grandparents’ homelands, such as how Bollywood shapes Indian Americans’ impressions of India. This relates to the bigger question of who we are and how identities are shaped.
“These projects are fascinating to think about,” says Feeney.
For more information, please visit catawba.edu/honors.
