Summer 2009

New Enhanced Honors Program
Marcie Paul, Associate Professor of Spanish and Director of the Honors Program

I am pleased to have this opportunity to introduce myself to you and to provide you with some information about the new residential component to the St. Norbert Honors Program.

The Honors Program at St. Norbert College has a 25-year history of excellence, offering qualified students classes that are academically rigorous, small in size and taught by some of the college’s most exciting and esteemed faculty members. The Faculty Honors Committee and I, along with the Student Honors Council, are excited to build on this foundation and to develop the Honors Program beyond the classroom.

Beginning this fall (2009), we are introducing two changes into the program: a common course that will be taken by all incoming honors students, and a residential component - incoming honors students will be living in Bergstrom Hall, a first-year residence overlooking the river. There are three floors in Bergstrom: the first floor will house men, the second and the third, women.

Why are we introducing a residential component? For two reasons. In conversations with current honors students, they expressed a concern with a lack of cohesion or community. Often, the only contact they had with one another was in their honors classes. Second, when we looked beyond our own campus at other colleges and their honors programs, we saw that the student life component was vital to the success of these programs and their participants.

We would like to build an Honors Community at St. Norbert College - not just an Honors Program. Honors student will get to know each other inside the classroom, and outside as well. We will begin the year with a kick-off picnic outside Bergstrom; all honors students (not just incoming) are invited, as well as the dean of the college, the vice president for student affairs and the honors faculty (who will be doing the grilling!). Later in the semester, the residents of Bergstrom will be invited to go together to the fall play (Midsummer Night’s Dream), an art exhibit at our own Bush Art Center and, of course, a Green Knights football game. The Student Honors Council will be meeting in the lounge at Bergstrom so that the incoming students get to know the members of the council.

There are more than 60 incoming honors students this fall, including several international students. We look forward to getting to know them all, and to having an exciting and academically challenging year. If you have any questions, concerns - or just want to talk - please give me a call (920-403-3222) or send me an e-mail marcie.paul@snc.edu. We will keep you informed!