HONORS COLLEGE COMMUNIQUE: March 2024

Hello from the Honors College! In partnership with Academic Advising, we are sending a monthly Honors College Communique on the Advising listserv, in which we will send short updates about:      

1. Honors opportunities open to all students    

2. A highlighted benefit of being an Honors College member    

3. A student highlight from your advising areas    

4. Contacts within Honors for more information    

Honors News: 

Call for Judges! We invite the UTSA community to be judges for the Spring 24 Honors College Experiential Learning Fair (ELF). Interested? Please email Dr. Hector Aguilar at hector.aguilar@utsa.edu. 

What is the ELF? Each semester, community members and UTSA staff, faculty and graduate students serve as judges for our Experiential Learning Fair (ELF). In the “ELF,” UTSA Honors College students present significant accomplishments outside of the classroom in Service, Professional Development, Intellectual Achievement & Research, Cultural Exploration, Engaged Living, and Skill Development. The ELF is an opportunity for them to share their experiences and learn to speak about them in meaningful ways. We intentionally invite community members and UTSA partners to judge to make explicit our belief that education is a civic good. Student efforts in our curriculum should benefit our communities.  

Judging Process. The judging process will be relatively simple:   

· The judging is Wednesday, April 17th. 

· The student presentation times are 11:30-12:30 and 2:30-3:30. 

· There are two judging sessions: 11:00-12:30 and 2:00-3:30, both in the HEB SU Ballroom.

· The judge training and poster previewing in the first 30 minutes of the sessions.

· We will provide the rubrics and training. 

Honors Academics: 

New Fall 24 Freshmen – It’s new student orientation & advising time! Honors Counselors will host several opportunities for our new students to meet with us, but we would like to share the following Honors curriculum information with you. Please share with your Honors students when you meet with them for their academic advising appointments.

These are the required Honors courses: 

• HON 1000 – is required for all Honors students and must be taken in the first semester. This is an 8–week, zero-credit hour, asynchronous course. 
• HON 2301 – is required for Honors and must be taken in the first year. This is an 8–week, one-credit hour, asynchronous course. 
• Honors CSH 1213– is required for Honors and can be taken when it best fits the student’s schedule. This course is offered in the fall or spring semester, and topics vary. This course counts towards the core curriculum in the Language, Philosophy and Culture section.
• Honors WRC 1023 – is required, unless students have prior credit (ex: dual credit for ENGL 1302), and can be taken in the fall or spring. NOTE: if students have credit already for this, they do not need to retake the Honors section.

Honors AIS: While our Honors FTICs are not required to take Honors AIS, we encourage them to do so. Our Honors AIS count for both the core and the first experience credit in Honors...and we have some great topics offered! Course descriptions are available on our website. (Note: Sections H5H and H6H are reserved for COS Honors, APPEX, and ESTEEMED students)

· AIS 1203.H1H Globalization and the Global Community, CRN 19646, T 1-2:15pm, mix of in-person and online, M. Newell. 

· AIS 1203.H2H title, CRN 19645, MWF 10-10:50am, mostly in-person & some online, C. Witt.

· AIS 1203.H7H Biology, Culture, Health, CRN 24477, MWF 12-12:50pm, mostly in-person & some online, K. Harrell

Additional information:  

· You can find Honors sections of other discipline courses by selecting "Honors" in the attribute box on the course schedule.

· Honors course descriptions are listed on our website. Click on the course title to find the description.

· Have a student who is interested in joining Honors? Great! Honors admissions is by invite, and each fall and spring we invite current UTSA students, with a 3.5 GPA & less than 60 hours, to join Honors. Visit our website for more info on our admissions process.

If you, or your students, have questions, you can contact the counseling team at honors.advising@utsa.edu.

Honors Opportunities for All Students: 

Millennium Fellowship – The application is now open! The United Nations Academic Impact and MCN proudly present the Millennium Fellowship. This program convenes, challenges, and celebrates student leadership for UN goals. In 2021, 2,000+ Millennium Fellows collectively advanced all 17 Sustainable Development Goals, contributed 247,763 hours to 1,083 projects, and positively impacted the lives of over 1.6 million people in 30 nations. Over 44,000 young leaders on 3,000+ campuses across 170 nations applied to join the Class of 2023. This is a robust global network and undergraduates worldwide are invited to apply for the Class of 2024. Info Sessions: https://mf24vis.paperform.co/. Visit the website for more information and the application: https://www.millenniumfellows.org/apply. The Final Application Deadline is Sunday, March 31, 2024.

Highlighted Benefit for Honors College Members: 

Honors College has two study abroad opportunities this summer. 

HON 3253 Trailblazing the National Parks 3.0 - In this trip, students will investigate the landscape, history, and cultures of seven national parks in a mini-mester course (April 20-21 + May 11-23, 2024). This trip offers a life-changing learning experience in dramatic landscapes from the Colorado mountains to deep canyon country of Utah and Arizona. Students with a range of majors will join instructors with natural sciences and experiential education backgrounds to investigate how humans impact and value the natural world. On hikes and guided tours, in exhibits and sacred spaces, around campfires, river rafting, and riding horses, we confront key environmental and social challenges in these diverse natural and cultural landscapes. Using interdisciplinary and experiential approaches, students will explore the significance of aesthetic, ecological, historical, social, and even spiritual forces of our parks and why we need environmental stewardship leaders to protect them for the future. By participating in this program, students will earn a NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) Wilderness First Aid (WFA) certification. This program will also count toward Honors Requirements as an Engaged Living Experience.

Summer-Fall Study Abroad with Honors: Intentional and Sustainable Living in Costa Rica: Led by Eliot Howard. In this trip, students will spend 10 days in August, at an off-the-grid farm where they will participating in hands-on learning with the biodiversity of the rainforest, renewable energy systems in practice, and mind-body experiential learning. The goal of the course is to immerse students in different approaches of what it means to live intentionally and sustainably in local and global communities. This program is also open to first-year students who are just starting their time at UTSA. The program counts as an engaged living experience in the Honors curriculum.

Student Highlight: Jasmin Simone Paquet-Durand Ford, Senior, major in Economics in the College of Business

Hometown: San Ignacio, Belize

Program: Senior majoring in Economics (BA)

Future Plans: Masters in Economics / Public Policy / Data Science

Hobbies: camping, hiking, backpacking, road trips, national parks, traveling, crafts, yoga, cooking, and reading. 

Extracurricular Activities, Fellowships, & Experience

· Archer Fellow (Fall 2024)

· University of Texas System Student Advisory Council: Chair (2023-2024), Vice Chair (2022-2023), UTSA Representative (2021-2022)

· Undergraduate Research Assistant in Department of Economics (2023-2024)

· The Society of Economics (at UTSA): Co-President (Spring 2024), Social Director (2022-2023), Founding Member (Fall 2022)

· First Generation Investors: San Antonio Chapter Co-President & Lead Tutor (Spring 2024)

· UTSA Student Government Association: President (2022-2023), Vice President (2021-2022), College of Business Senator (2020-2021)

· National Diversity Case Competition (January 2023)

· Honors College Engaged Living Study Away: Trailblazing the National Parks (Summer 2022)

· Supplemental Instructor at UTSA: Intro to American Politics (2020-2021)

· Honors College Peer Coach (2020-2021)

· Internship with Congressman Lloyd Doggett (Fall 2020)

· Business Honors Program & Honors College Member since Spring 2020

Best Regards,    

Alegra Lozano, Director of Counseling, Honors College, alegra.lozano@utsa.edu

Hector Aguilar, Associate Dean, Honors College, hector.aguilar@utsa.edu

Honors email: honors@utsa.edu

Honors advising email: honors.advising@utsa.edu

Honors website: https://honors.utsa.edu/

Honors Experiential Learning Lab: https://honors.utsa.edu/academics/experiential-learning-lab.html