By Magdalena Stuehrmann, Class of 2015
The George Washington University Honors Program gives more than 400 students the chance to attend small classes and benefit from close connections with their professors.
For George Washington senior Elyssa Kaplan, honors courses have given her the opportunity to learn from accomplished professors like Ronald Dworkin, a professorial lecturer in the honors program and anesthesiologist, author, political philosopher and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
“Not only is Professor Dworkin incredibly brilliant, but he knows so many people,” said Ms. Kaplan, who took Professor Dworkin’s Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought during her freshman year. “When discussing Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and the Last Man, Professor Dworkin could tell us what his friend, ‘Francis’ said about the work and how he ‘got it wrong.’”
Honors program students benefit from close contact with professors like Dr. Dworkin, who bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the classroom.
Though the program has traditionally been centered in Foggy Bottom at the honors program townhouse on 21st Street, the program will transition to a “dual-campus plan” in fall 2012. Under the plan, the honors courses for freshmen, the freshman honors housing and the honors program office will move to the Mount Vernon Campus, while the majority of upper-class honors classes and a second honors program office will remain in Foggy Bottom.
Maria Frawley, the director of the honors program, described it as a small, intensive university-within-a-university program.
“We try to provide our students with a real sense of a small intellectual community within the very vibrant, urban, research university setting that GW provides,” she said.
The honors program, which students apply to during the normal undergraduate application process, also provides students with a support system to make sure that they stay on track academically.
“My favorite part of the honors program is the advisers. Liz Sutton and Catherine Chandler know almost everything. They are extremely helpful and personable and make an extra effort to get to know all of the students,” said Katherine Winters, a GW junior. “Most importantly, they’re realistic and let me know when I’m trying to be too academically ambitious.”
When students are accepted into the selective honors program, they enter a specially designed curriculum, which has several required courses that all students must complete. During their freshman year, students take two yearlong seminars – Origins and Evolution of Modern Thought and Scientific Reasoning and Discovery. These seminars are designed to have students complete more than the usual reading and writing coursework that would accompany a regular class. Students are expected to discuss and debate ideas presented in class. The seminars are also intended to increase students’ familiarity with a range of ideas and to facilitate discussion through small class sizes.
“We want to build a community starting in the freshman year. The small size of the program helps students get to know each other better, and the curriculum allows students to study together in classes their first year and to cement the honors program community,” Dr. Frawley said.
The honors program recently introduced a sophomore admissions process to allow students who miss the opportunity to apply as an incoming freshman to join the program.
By their senior year, students are required to take courses that fulfill an arts and humanities and a self and society requirement. Each course offered to fulfill these requirements is capped at 15 students – a limitation that facilitates discussion.
“The courses are university-wide because we are a university-wide program. In honors seminars, students are surrounded by other students from the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, from the Elliot School of International Affairs, from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, from the School of Business and the School of Public Health and Health Services,” said Dr. Frawley. “I think that this is part of what makes it such an extraordinary experience for students. They get a chance to gather around a seminar table and bat around ideas, whether those ideas come from Plato and Aristotle or from a science lab or a social science survey, with students from very different academic backgrounds and experiences and educational directions.”
Students must complete a thesis and participate in an honors capstone their senior year. This seminar-style course offers students an opportunity to reflect on their honors experiences and consider their futures.
“We want seniors to be able to be looking forward and looking backward and to be able to connect the dots,” said Dr. Frawley.
There is a cohort of faculty members who are specifically hired to teach in the honors program. Ms. Kaplan said the honors professors bring a different perspective to teaching.
“They allowed us to explore our own interests within the parameters of the class, and not only knew our names but truly knew who we were as people,” she said.
When Ms. Kaplan learned she had a few open elective spots for her last semester, she immediately looked at the honors courses.
“I know that the professor will be incredible and invested in my learning, my peers will be engaged, and that I will remember the class five, 10 and 20 years from now,” she said.
The program doesn’t only focus on the students’ academic development. The small honors courses that allow students to get to know each other help to pave the way for communication outside the classroom. The honors program townhouse, located at 714 21st St. NW, is a place where students can relax, talk and study, and freshmen also have the option to live in honors housing together.
Ms. Winters said she especially appreciates the honors townhouse during finals when it stays open late to provide extra study space for honors program students.
“It’s awesome because I get to work with my friends who have similar study habits,” she said.
But what Ms. Winters likes the most about the honors program is the friends she’s made through classes and living in honors housing.
“My friends in the program are some of the most caring, fun and supportive people I’ve ever met,” she said.