Recently, Dr. Oya Dursun-Ozkanca—professor of international studies and political science, as well as Director of the Honors Program and the international studies minor here at Elizabethtown College—was appointed to a prestigious leadership position in the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). This development serves to create an advantageous environment for the Honors Program at Elizabethtown College and similar programs around the nation, ultimately benefiting Honors students and their prospective careers in their studies.
Founded in 1966, the NCHC is an organization that advocates for the improvement of honors education at colleges across the United States. This organization works specifically for the betterment of honors collegiate life and learning for undergraduate students and is connected to over 900 member institutions. The work of this operation is to sustain and enhance honors curriculums, affecting over 330,000 honors students around the nation. Additionally, through this body, honors students have access to exclusive scholarships and events.
Ozkanca’s newly acquired role in the NCHC will be a three-year position in which she will work on a committee that meets several times each year and specializes in the honors programs at small colleges similar to Etown, striving to find the issues in said programs and resolve them for the betterment of the students involved. Ozkanca, along with her constituents on the committee, will raise concerns at their meetings about the honors programs being evaluated; these concerns will be shared to the deans and directors of these programs in order to instill best practice and mold them to be, in her own words, “As successful and established as ours here at Etown.” In her position, Ozkanca will also be determining which papers and proposals will be accepted for presentation at the annual NCHC conference, which displays student work and gives students opportunities to network with potential colleagues. The conference also allows for students to gain information about graduate programs, internships, technologies and study abroad excursions.
In terms of benefiting students at Etown, Ozkanca’s appointment to the NCHC committee will allow for her to bring visibility to the College’s program and evaluate its efficacy. She plans to spread the word of the Etown Honors Program to prospective students visiting the College, which will bolster the social capital of our program and promote an influx of new Honors College students. Further, Ozkanca plans to evaluate how functional our program is in comparison to those she surveys in her service on the committee and make changes as she sees fit. Her assessments of our program will enable growth and development for students in the Honors College, creating new, higher standards for them and ensuring that their careers in the program will be successful.
“I feel like, for us in the Honors Program, knowing that someone is actually working on making changes to benefit us is very reassuring. It makes me feel like she cares about my education and success,” first-year secondary biology education major and Honors Program student Madison Ebert said.
Ozkanca’s naming to the NCHC committee is well-received by the students at Etown and is only one step in the process of her continual commitment and enthusiastic service to the Honors Program at Etown. All students in the Honors Program will reap the benefits of the enriched curriculum and supported educational experience that Ozkanca plans to provide with the help of her work on the NCHC committee. From a national perspective, her efforts will expand the efficacy of honors programs across the nation, bringing the voice of Elizabethtown Honors Education to students far and wide while simultaneously pursuing betterment in the program itself.
