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Honors Students Travel to D.C.
11/13/2009
 Four University of St. Thomas Honors students received the opportunity to travel with Dr. Terry Hall, UST Honors Program director, to the 44th annual conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) in Washington, D.C. from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1. Through exposure to other Honors programs, the students gained perspective of their own Catholic liberal arts Honors education and insight into other colleges’ programs.
The group of juniors included: Anthony Pejerry, English major; John Jurica, psychology major; Melissa Binstock, psychology major; and Youstina Ishak, biochemistry major. Every year, four to six students are selected by their Honors grade point average to attend the conference.
The students attended lectures on various topics concerning Honors education and toured Washington D.C. with Hall. In their downtime, the students visited the monuments, two Smithsonian museums, the White House and other Washington sites.
“The conference gives our Honors students the opportunity to meet students from Honors programs at other colleges and universities and to compare the strength of a UST education with that of other institutions,” Hall said. “This is perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of attending the national conference.”
Hall said that the students spent time with the Colorado School of Mines students, who have a different emphasis in their program.
“I noticed the large variety among Honors programs,” Ishak said. “Ours is focused on classical literature like Homer and philosophers like Kant and Descartes, and others like the engineering students from Colorado are more focused on anthropology.”
Jurica, who agreed with Ishak, said he enjoyed getting to know others college students’ perspectives and backgrounds.
Comparing and contrasting Honors programs made the students see the benefits of the UST Honors Program.
“The Program exposes you to an expansive variety of literature,” Ishak said. “Since I’m strictly science, the Honors classes gave me the opportunity to read classical and modern literature. The classes also gave me a more in-depth understanding of philosophy. Without the Honors Program, I wouldn’t have been able to have this exposure.”
The UST Honors Program is a four-year interdisciplinary program that embodies the goals of Catholic liberal arts education at St. Thomas and fosters the realization of these goals.
“Honors students receive an understanding of the intellectual, cultural and spiritual foundations of their education as well as the means to use it in the service of their families, professions and communities,” Hall said.
The NCHC is the professional association of undergraduate Honors programs and colleges in the United States. This year’s conference theme was Honors in the Global City, which referenced that Washington, D.C. was more than the U.S. capital but also a diverse international community. Previous sites for the conference include Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia and Salt Lake City.
Shown above from left to right: Melissa Binstock, Dr. Terry Hall, Anthony Pejerry, Youstina Ishak and John Jurica stand in front of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.
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