Five Honors students recently attended and presented at the annual National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) conference with professor Jean-Paul Benowitz. The conference, which has been going for 56 years, was held in Orlando, Fla., and the theme was “Reimagine Honors: Past, Present, Future.”
Seniors Kailey Caroland and Kyle Cappuci, juniors Lauren Comly, Andrew Furman and Eric Schubert all attended and presented different panels.
The first was “Honors Connection Uninterrupted: Virtual Opportunities to Foster Community,” presented by Caroland and Comly. They were able to provoke discussions about virtual options for the honors college student community in a roundtable environment.
Cappucci, Furman, Schubert and Benowitz were able to present “Honors Community-Based Learning Uninterrupted: Pandemic Possibilities.”
The conference ran from Wednesday, Oct. 27, to Saturday, Oct. 28, however the students were able to stay until Sunday and spend the day in Disney World.
Professor Benowitz has been teaching a community based learning course for the last six years, and for the latter half of that time, research has been focused on historically significant properties in the National Historic District of Marietta, Pa. The course uses the National Collegiate Honors Council’s pedagogy called City as a Text. Through the NCHC active learning approach, Honors students are able to conduct field work for research while building relationships with local residents and stakeholders in Marietta regarding historic preservation initiatives.
At the presentations, Dr. Benowitz and his students were able to discuss how the Etown Honors Program transitioned from in person to remote learning during the pandemic, while holding onto civic engagements. Research was able to remain uninterrupted.
“Through Zoom meetings, Honors students continued to interview residents in Marietta, they continued to conduct their research through online archival collections and government record repositories. We found that Zoom actually improved research, writing and class discussions,” Benowitz said.
The students were able to present their research findings remotely. They found that the pandemic actually had a positive impact on Marietta because people were able to socialize while social distancing outdoors on the trails and parks in Marietta. Honors students are currently working with launching a National Historic Preservation Trust “This Place Matters!” campaign for Marietta, and their work has gone on uninterrupted in the face of virtual learning.
“The focus of our presentation at NCHC was how the pandemic did not interrupt our research, writing, scholarship, community based learning through City as Text and our civic engagement helping Marietta Borough with their historic preservation, economic development [and] ecological/environmental conservation initiatives,” Benowitz said.
The conference itself was a typical conference environment, and a professional setting for Honors students to learn more about conference etiquette. The College’s Honors Program has been attending the annual NCHC meeting for 20 years, since the existence of the program. Attendees found that there wasn’t much of an exceptional change to the conference, even though there has been a global pandemic.
While at the conference, a monograph was put out by NCHC, called “Place, Self, Community: City as Text in the Twenty-First Century.” Benowitz authored the chapter “Transforming Community Based Learning Through City as Text.” This chapter talks about how the City as Text pedagogy has been incorporated into the Elizabethtown Honors Program. The chapter brings attention to the College as a whole, and puts a spotlight on the Honors Community.
The Etownian congratulates Benowitz on the authorship of this chapter and to the attendees of the conference for their presentations.
