Honors Program

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Community Engagement and Leadership

In line with our College’s motto – Educate for Service – and the Honors Program’s motto – Learn, Serve, and Lead – Honors students actively engage in community service, experiential learning, and leadership opportunities. Joining the Honors Program means students join a community of peers who define the best in academic achievement, demonstrate leadership initiative, and possess a dedication to improving their communities.

Honors Program Co-Curricular Requirement

The Honors Program Co-Curricular Requirement Hours Log-Sheet can be found through our Canvas page.

Honors students already uphold the College's motto -- Educate for Service -- and the Honors Program's motto -- Learn, Serve, and Lead -- throughout their college experience. Many Honors Program students regularly and actively engage in volunteer service, community engagement, and leadership experiences each year. This co-curricular requirement in the Honors Program will allow students to record and share those experiences. This initiative will help us recognize the meaningful contributions our Honors students actively make to their communities.

Honors students record their 15 hours of volunteer service, community engagement, and leadership each year throughout their undergraduate education. All Honors students submit a diary of those activities as well as a reflection paper on a yearly basis.

Students can use Community-based Learning (CBL) courses, such as HON 201; opportunities through the Center for Community and Civic Engagement at Etown; attendance at the US Foreign Policymaking Leadership Sessions with Ambassador John Craig (and other adjacent sessions/lectures) throughout the academic year; and many more volunteering and/or community engagement and/or leadership opportunities (pre-approved by the Director of the Honors Program).

Benefits of this requirement for students include recognizing and celebrating the significant and impactful service conducted by students; helping students develop inter-group friendships on deeper levels and enhancing their identities as engaged citizens; and providing students a way to purposefully organize and demonstrate their community engagement, volunteer service, and leadership activities, which in turn will help in preparing applications for graduate schools, prestigious scholarships and fellowships, and other career opportunities.

Honors Experiential Service Learning Projects

HON 201 Elizabethtown History: Campus and Community-a course offered every spring-draws on NCHC's City as Text TM paradigm to engage students in oral history research, archival research, and historic preservation projects. In previous years, students have conducted National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 reviews of the Elizabethtown Moose Lodge and the North Market Street Bridge. The former contributed to saving the Moose Lodge, a structure designed by prominent regional architect Cassius Emlen Urban, from demolition. The latter provided documentation for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation prior to reconstruction of the bridge. The bridge project included an ArcGIS map what students created. In a recent offering of HON 201, students produced an ArcGIS map illustrating and documenting the historical significance of Marietta, Pennsylvania, to assist the RiverStewards-a non-profit organization working to conserve the Susquehanna River Valley.

Honors Courses allow students to demonstrate their full academic abilities while encouraging them to build community engagement and awareness and foster leadership skills and service. The Honors Program at Etown endeavors to build a community of people who are curious, thrive on intellectual challenges, and seek ways to use their extraordinary gifts in productive and meaningful ways. Additionally, many Honors courses routinely take field trips and invite prominent guest speakers to class.

Elizabethtown College

717-361-1000

1 Alpha Drive
Elizabethtown, PA 17022

Elizabethtown College does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, religion, age, disability, marital status, veteran status, national or ethnic origin, ancestry, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, genetic information, possession of a general education development certificate as compared to a high school diploma, or any other legally protected status. This commitment applies but is not limited to decisions made with respect to hiring and promotion, the administration of educational programs and policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other College administered programs. Discrimination or harassment of any kind is strictly forbidden.