Goal 4

The fourth goal of the Honors Program is to engage with diverse perspectives in order to cultivate cultural competence and an appreciation of differences. I think this goal is interesting because to complete the outcomes, students are tasked with completing many tasks. There are four outcomes in goal four, however the second outcome is only required to be completed by students who are acquiring an Honors minor. I am only acquiring a concentration. The first outcome is analyzing current and historical international issues and aspects of global culture. The second outcome is showing foreign language proficiency at least an intermediate level and, again, is only required for a minor. The third outcome is collaborating actively with diverse local and global partners. Finally, to achieve the fourth outcome, students must appraise issues from multiple perspectives.

The first outcome, I believe, is the most interesting of the four. There are a few classes where students look at issues that have had or will have significant effects on the country and the world. The biggest example that I experienced was through HON 252H - Visionaries of the Past. The exact curriculum of this class can differ each time it is offered. When I took the course, we focused on revolutionaries starting with the American revolution, moving to Communist revolutions, and finishing with Cultural revolutions of the 1960s. I have two artifacts that come from the Communist revolutions section of this course.

The first artifact is a reflection on Mao Tse-tung's Talks at the Yanan Forum on Literature and Art. I broke the reflection into sections, with the first focusing on a summarization of the talks. The second section is an opinion on whether these talks help the Communist cause is China. The second artifact shares a similarity to the first. In this artifact, I compared the approaches of Mao Tse-tung with Ho Chi Minh. The first paragraph focused on the goals and tactics in the quests of bringing Communism to power in their respective countries. The second paragraph was my opinion on which of the two’s works moved me more. I wrote about how Ho Chi Minh’s was more effective on me because of the visualization that he provided. Both artifacts are good examples of my ability to analyze issues that affect global culture. Both men were critical to the spread of Communism in the world and the effects can still be seen today. These are not the only examples from this class, or from other classes that show my ability to analyze issues that have affected global culture.

Volunteering is an important topic that is taught throughout the Honors Program and the third outcome is fittingly collaborating actively with diverse local and global partners. One example is in the very first class many Honors students take, HON 191 - The Honors Community. Here, students were required to form groups and volunteer for at least two hours. My group and I helped the Music Department two times for our volunteer experience. The first time consisted of us assembling music stands. The second time we helped move instruments out of the Admin building after an event. In HON 391H - Community Problem-Solving, my independent project was tutoring in the Computer Science Department. I could help a few people. Even with these two experiences, I do not believe that I effectively completed this outcome. Both projects involved people on campus which I do not believe qualify as local. I think that there could have been some better examples of me completing this outcome if I had taken some classes later in my career because I know some requirements for classes have changed.

The fourth outcome, appraising issues from multiple viewpoints, is another extremely important skill that is further developed in the Honors Program. The ability to receive information from multiple viewpoints and form your own opinion from them is an important skill that meshes well with the ability to communicate discussed in goal three. My artifact for outcome four comes, again, from HON 252H - Visionaries of the Past.

The specific journal compares Modris Ekstein’s Rites of Spring and the movie Cabaret. Both works take place in a post-World War I Germany. In the journal, I compare how in how both works, there are two different views. In Rites of Spring, the civilians at home thought it was a gentlemanly war, while in reality, the war was a slaughter for all involved. Cabaret has a similar theme. Inside the titular cabaret, people are in a good mood laughing at the performances. Outside, the world is a much drearier place with the rise of Naziism and an economic depression. This artifact is a good example of using multiple viewpoints. Both works mentioned come from separate times but share similar concepts with an inverse idea. In Rites of Spring, the people at home assume an honorable war, while the reality is vastly different. In Cabaret the general perception of the world is bad, but there is good in the cabaret.

The fourth goal is an interesting goal that covers many different topics that Honors students should accomplish. Every individual on the planet has their own thoughts and opinions. It is important for people to do things like relate how issues have affected culture or collaborate with others who are not in your classes or necessarily on campus. The most important of the outcomes is appraising issues from multiple viewpoints because people disagree over many issues and being able to see both views and forge your own opinion, whether siding with one or another or creating a new opinion, is something you do many times a day without even realizing it. This goal does more than just make sure students are prepared academically, but they are prepared to interact with the world in the many years that follow their departure from campus.

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