Goal 4

The fourth and final goal of the Honors Program is “Engage with diverse perspectives in order to cultivate cultural competence and an appreciation of differences.” I think I managed to accomplish this goal with a few assignments that were completed throughout the few years I was in the program.

The first assignment is the Learn from Leaders Reflection from HON 250H - Foundations of Leadership. For this assignment, I had to find two people that I saw as leaders and interview them. I chose my mother and my aunt. They have always been a huge inspiration to me so being able to interview them about their leadership roles was very insightful. This associates with the outcome “appraise issues from multiple viewpoints.” I think that this achieves this goal because I interviewed people from different jobs. Leadership within each job is different so being able to see leadership from those perspectives gave me a better point of view.

The next assignment is the Final Portfolio from HON 395H - Citizenship and Service. During the course, we had to provide community service for twenty to thirty hours, and I chose to work with a teacher friend of mine in her classroom during the day. This associates with the outcome “collaborate actively with diverse local and global partners.” I think that this assignment helps prove that I had accomplished this goal because I had to work with other people to accomplish this goal. There are so many different cultures within a classroom and so I was able to hear some of their stories about where they came from and where they were going because some were moving. Her classroom was the best place to accomplish this. An example of this is working with students whose culture believes that schooling isn’t as important as it should be.

The last assignment was one of my journals from HON 252H - Visionaries of the Past. For this assignment, I had to look at four poems and analyze them. I remember the pieces being very negative towards women and I related deeply to them, especially when it had talked about a woman’s body. I made mention in the assignment that I had related because there was a time in my life that I didn’t like the way I looked and that was something I shouldn’t have had to worry about at that age. This assignment associates with the outcome “analyze current and historical international issues and aspects of global culture.” I think this assignment helps this goal because I saw in those pieces a universal issue of woman’s body and acknowledge that this idea has been happening for years, but we are slowly making a change to these ideas.

Overall, I think that I was able to accomplish this goal. These assignments not only impacted me but my job and the way I view my career. It made me realize that no matter what amount of leadership I have, I still have to be there for other people and make sure I am listening to them and helping as much as I can, whether it is my colleagues or my students, they need to know they are heard and have someone supporting them.