May 5, 2025
Newsletter link: https://mailchi.mp/b75034e7926a/this-week-in-honors
It's here! The week of finals. One last powerful effort, followed by a moment of weightless freefall before flying for our graduates, and a lesser break, but perhaps not a lesser relief, for returning students. I know you all can do this, and we all wish you the very best.
~V
- From the Director
- This Week in Honors
- Advising Updates
- Service Updates
- Honors Student Association
- Outside of Honors
From the Director
So, we have been on a bit of a journey this semester with the JMHP newsletter. I am not sure my director notes have always resonated. Too long. Too abstract. Perhaps. I’ll keep trying when I pick up in the Fall. Regardless, the overall newsletter has been a big improvement in communication. Kudos to Veronica Hoversten for putting it together on a weekly basis. Give her a big thanks when you see her for this and all of the other work she does.
This week, I’ll keep it brief.
First, congratulations to the newly elected officers of the Honors Student Association: Faith Wetherington (President), Shihab Alseikh (Vice-President), Olivia Moore (Treasurer), Annah Hale (Secretary). We look forward to working with our new partners starting in the Fall and better coordinated our activities to benefit the JMHP community.
Dr. Evelyn Malinowski, JMHP post-doctoral fellow, spoke Tuesday, 29 April. Her talk – Interdisciplinarity, Sound Studies, and Honors Learning – explored a central element of the JMHP, our commitment to interdisciplinarity. I hope many of you were able to attend.
Good hunting to all on your finals, final papers, and final projects. I hope they challenge you and provide you opportunities to apply and reflect on the knowledges you have been learning and competencies you have been developing!
A hearty congratulations to the graduating Class of 2025! Please be sure to join us for breakfast on Saturday, 10 May! We look forward to honoring this important milestone in your lives—celebrating your achievements and turning your attention to your future responsibilities, challenges, and delights. Minimally, please slide by the JMHP offices to pick up your stoles this Wednesday or later.
A final word to the graduating Class of 2025. Graduation is more a beginning than an ending. Now you are invited to pick up the work of healing the world. That should thrill and terrify you. The world is big. And broken. And breaking. Always already. Each generation must hold it, heal it, reinvent it, so it can be passed on. I wish you, in my invented language, Erregungzielshmertz, the thrill and “dread of pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested … [in the naked world] … no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you started up in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could” (John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows). Welcome to the circle of world-inventing and world-building—to the work and wisdom of weaving the future.
This Week in Honors
- Graduation Regalia: Meridian Scholars can pick up your Medallion from V at any time in LL 3013. All Honors grads, including Meridian Scholars, pick up your stole from the same person/place beginning Wednesday, May 7.
- Update your info! Moving home? Finding a new apartment? Leaving the state, fleeing hordes of fans? Update your address, phone number, and email information in cougarnet, so that things we send you get where you will be!
- Alumni Newsletter - Hey Grads! We're creating an alumni newsletter, a place to keep informed on the awesome changes in the John Martinson Honors Program, but more importantly, to keep in touch through special alumni events, giveaways, and other opportunities! Sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/HonorsAlumniNewsletter
Advising Reminders
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Construction has started for the John Martinson Honors Program space! ETA? Not telling, because we don't want to jinx it.
Service Updates
- We're still requesting students interested in helping with the onboarding events for new freshmens sign up to indicate interest. These events will all be the week before classes start. Benefits include early move-in, fancy t-shirts, and meeting our new crop of awesome students! Sign up here!
Honors Student Association
- Please join us in welcoming our new class representatives!
- At Large: Ellie Hurm, Eleanor Schuler, Dannica Davis
- Senior: Emma Griebenow & Rachel Robertson
- Junior: Anna Schleyhan
- Sophomore: Taylor Mungai & Jaiden Parker
- These students are representative of your class or of the organization at large! If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please reach out to them!
Outside of Honors
- Good luck on Finals!
