The National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) conference occurred from Oct. 27 to 31, 2021. It occurs annually, and this year’s theme was “Reimagine Honors: Past, Present, Future.” 

It discussed a monograph called “Place, Self, Community: City as Text in the Twenty-First Century.”

Professor Jean-Paul Benowitz presented his recent chapter named “Transforming Community Based Learning Through City as Text.” 

Benowitz is a professor for Honors FYS America in the 1980s: To the Max, PHS 202: Museum Studies and Museum Education and BA 400: Senior Project in Business. He is also the Director of Special Programs and Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships at Elizabethtown College.

“[NCHC] is an association of undergraduate honors programs, colleges, directors, deans, faculty, staff and students,” Benowitz said.

Benowitz and five Honors students participated in this event. Kailey Caroland and Lauren Comly presented a roundtable discussion called “Honors Connection Uninterrupted: Virtual Opportunities to Foster Community.”

Kyle Cappucci, Andrew Furman and student Eric Schubert presented “Honors Community-Based Learning Uninterrupted: Pandemic Possibilities” with Benowitz.

The monograph focuses on structured explorations and forms of immersion in communities, specifically through debriefs, discussions and reflective writing.

“This monograph explores the inherent integrative learning capacity to generate a sense of interconnectedness, of self-in-context, finding expression in professional practices enduring long after the original experiential adventure is over,” Benowitz said.

It examines instances of experiential learning outcomes illustrating the power of integrative learning to produce social sensitivity and engagement, especially with raw experience in understanding complex settings.

The monograph contains individuals who can trace their professional lives back to foundational experiences of them immersing in a community and their interactions.

“They include the voices of alumni of NCHC’s Honors Semesters, professionals who have used this approach in diverse settings and commentators on both process and practice,” Benowitz said.

It also contains authors, who represent social sciences, humanities and science backgrounds and applications.

City as Text is a Signature Program of NCHC where students explore the culture and geography of the local neighborhood within a local community.

“Students are challenged to be sensitive and reflect about the human experience in the local built environment,” Benowitz said.

Honors students explore the architectural landscape of different places and research in repositories through public records.

Books, images, sounds, tastes, smells and observations contribute to the students’ experiences in being aware of what is missed in everyday life and what can be seen or heard.

“City As Text is an active learning approach helping students regard the world as a book to be read, and to see their journey through it as a cartographer’s task of charting the personal paths they take to uncover and discover the local environment around them,” Benowitz said.

He refers to this as the “City As Text/Place as Text” strategy. He integrates it in his chapter with Honor students at Elizabethtown College.

“City As Test/Place as Text has contributed to our Honors students thinking independently, critically, solving problems and becoming change agents on campus and in the local community,” Benowitz said.

His chapter explains the importance of “City As Text/Place as Text” in the Honors program.  

Benowitz illustrated how Honor students used “City As Text/Place as Text” strategies when addressing experienced racism in new student orientation programming, transforming volunteerism into sustained civic engagement, preparing for study abroad and promoting prestigious scholarships and fellowships.

Benowitz also discussed how research projects enable Honors students to publish scholarships informing federal, state and local historic preservation public works projects. The students also improve town and gown relationships and work with local stakeholders in community economic development initiatives.

Benowitz discussed his three Honors Community Based Learning courses, his First-Year Seminar, a research methods seminar and a Study Away Regional Studies summer course, and connected them with “City As Text/Place as Text.”

“City As Text/Place as Test has transformed these courses providing students with a systematic way to approach learning about the local community and context for service learning,” Benowitz said.