In today’s world where adapting to change is difficult (to say the least), it is quite hard to be “revolutionary,” to create a drastic change. The theme of the National Collegiate Honors Conference, Revolutionary Honors, had a lot to live up to, but with so many people in one place who want to one day create change, revolution was bound to be in the air.
Dr. Mann and KC Garania took students Paris Riggle (‘23), Emma Hansen (‘23), Morgan Fimreite (‘25), Earl De’Souza (‘26), and Tyler Kasper (‘27) to the conference this year. When the majority of us students saw the email for NCHC, we had no idea what it entailed. Some of us applied to present a poster and others wanted to experience the conference. We were excited to travel to Chicago for a few days and attend some interesting sessions, but we didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the Grand Sheraton hotel. Thankfully, there was an NCHC app that gave us information about all the sessions and when they were. We could plan our days in advance and know when we had breaks in our schedule.
After a long day of travel with a car ride where we traded songs back and forth between cars, including the Home Depot theme, we boarded an Amtrak train in Milwaukee. Once we arrived at Union Station and realized it was dark and rainy, we took Ubers to our hotel. We quickly found our beds and planned to meet the next morning to register and attend the opening session.
The opening session, Deeper Than the Skin, was a beautiful mixture of stories of two men, one black and one white, one from the North and one from the South, and how they found each other and strive to create change together. Difficult conversations were made easier between the two of them, and their musical talents only add to the experience and the weight of their message. At one point, we were all singing and clapping together, which is a great way to begin a conference for Honors, of which community and working together are two strong pillars.
SNC students attended a number of sessions including a scholarship application workshop where we met the mascot of a school and a session about mental health and perfectionism in Honors. A staple of NCHC is “City as Text,” where students are led in groups to discover more about the city we’re staying in. We were nervous to explore around Chicago, but we were pleasantly surprised by the guidance we were given by the organizers, even though it wasn’t much. We were encouraged to take advantage of the moment and wander. Morgan and Paris went to the Chicago Cultural Center then strayed from the path to go to the Art Institute of Chicago where they saw Picasso’s The Old Guitarist, multiple Georgia O’Keefe’s, and American Gothic. Earl, Emma, and Tyler went to Northalsted, an inclusive LGBTQ+ community.
All the experiences we had in Chicago and at the conference were valuable and taught us that Honors is far more than just our work in the classroom. It’s about bettering ourselves and gaining real-world experience; getting lost and making connections. Those of us who are not graduating look forward to attending next year.
