“I recognize that some people believe that Honors is about completing classes, registering early, living in Wheeler, and having access to the largest merit-based scholarships Longwood offers. Those are certainly nice perks, but I don’t believe Honors is about any of that.
I believe Honors is about all of the things you’d think it is about: learning, growing, exploring, and the like. I believe Honors is about working with great faculty. I believe Honors is about opportunities to move beyond the familiar. But I believe Honors is about so much more than that.
I believe Honors students are focused on learning. Not taking classes. Not checking off boxes on a degree evaluation. Not doing the minimum to get it done.
I believe Honors students seek “to see what it’s like from a different point of view” and value intellectual restlessness.
More importantly, though, I believe Honors is about community. A community of scholars. A community of citizens motivated by responsibilities to themselves and others. A community of people who accept differences – differences in opinions, differences in perspectives, differences in approaches, differences in abilities, differences in values – and recognize that those differences can weave the community together rather than serve as fractures within it. One must simply choose the hard work of cooperation rather than the easier option.
What I have always believed about Honors, more than anything else, is that this community is a home, a home to those who wish to be engaged in the life of the community. Those who wish to accept others despite their differences. Those who wish to lead, to guide, and to serve.
Finally, I believe that Honors community is welcoming. Though its members know that some will visit shortly and then move on to other communities, it embraces new people and supports them. And that standard of inclusion and acceptance is absolute. This is the expectation of all citizens in the Honors community.
I believe that you have the choice to engage this community in that same way. I truly hope you will opt to take on those responsibilities and meet those standards. If you do, you won’t be disappointed. This I know to be true about Honors.”
– Dr. Alix Fink, Dean of the Cormier Honors College
http://blogs.longwood.edu/cormierhonors/