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Special Programs & Academic Resources

The Honors Enrichment Program is a co-curricular program for students with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher.  It gives honors students across the five schools of the college the opportunity to engage intellectually with their peers.  Promoting interdisciplinary exchange, the program challenges honors students to move beyond standard curricula and to act as intellectual leaders.

The current program has three required elements.  All students participate in the City Cultural Exchange and the Symposia.   For the third element, the students are required to write a 3 page reflection analysis.  These events are organized around an annual theme, chosen by the faculty co-coordinators and the Honors Steering Committee.  The theme for the 2006-2007 academic year is "Mucking with the Genes: Possibilities and Pitfalls."  Each semester, students who participate in all three parts of the program and fulfill its requirements receive transcript recognition for that semester.

A highlight of the program is the City Cultural Exchange, which exposes students to the cultural life of New York City.  Students choose to attend one cultural event in New York City from a list of possible activities relating to the year's theme.  Toward the end of the semester, we gather together at a pizza party to compare our experiences of these events.  Past events have included the Broadway musical Cabaret, the Congo Gorilla forest at the Bronx Zoo, an exhibit of outsider art at the Museum of American Folk Art, a guided tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, a mixed-media installation on memory and history at the Studio Museum of Harlem, the Ground Zero viewing platform, and an exhibition on utopian societies in Western culture at the New York Public Library.

The Symposia usually follow a more traditional academic format.  Students attend a presentation by faculty on a specific topic related to the theme.  Usually these presentations address the theme from different disciplinary perspectives.  These symposia are followed by group discussions, both immediately after the lecture and on an online discussion board.

The third component, an essay, challenges students to integrate ideas emerging from events in the semester.  We also hope students seek other academic and service opportunities on campus which we describe through the Honors Enrichment Blackboard site.
 
Students are encouraged to take an active role in the program to ensure that it remains student-oriented. They can do this by becoming representatives for their school on the Steering Committee, volunteering to work with a faculty member at a Symposium, and taking an active part in the program's events and online discussion board.

For additional information, contact the current Honors Enrichment co-coordinators:

 

Dr. Helene Tyler 
Department of Math and Computer Sciences
RLC 201C
Ext. 7365 
helene.tyler@manhattan.edu

Dr. Michele Saracino
Religious Studies Department
Miguel 435
Ext. 7412
michele.saracino@manhattan.edu