Goal 2
The second goal of the Honors Program is to exhibit a commitment to community awareness, involvement, and service.
This goal asks students to enact solutions to real world problems for individuals and society and reflect on a civic effort which addresses civic responsibility and citizenship. As for me, I had the opportunity to reflect on civic efforts during my tenure in the Honors Program. I will present two artifacts that showcase the previously mentioned outcome as well as how it relates to the second goal of the Honors Program. One artifact is a journal reflecting on service from HON 250H- Foundations of Leadership and the other artifact is a paper on breaking cultural norms from HON 264H – Thinking Outside the Box.
In Professor Smestad’s class, Foundations of Leadership, I demonstrated the ability to reflect on civic efforts. For her
journal entry assignments, we wrote what we had done for service in the Minot area. In my fifth and final journal in her class, I noted what services I conducted to meet the fifteen hour requirement. I listed attending Honors meetings, babysitting my sister’s children, and running an Honors booth at the MSU on Halloween night. I also noted that I invited a few friends to join the Honors Society, a group affiliated with the Honors Program.. From these activities, I noted I needed to take more initiative with assignments and to be confident in my leadership skills, as well as be better with my communication skills. This journal reflects my diligence in serving others and potential to be an outstanding citizen inside and outside of the Honors Society. This meets the second outcome of the second goal in which I reflected on my civic efforts in the Honors Society and learned to have more of a civic leadership role. This also accomplishes the second goal of the Honors Program since I made a commitment of fifteen hours or more to be involved in service in the Minot area.
Secondly, in Professor Smestad’s Thinking Outside the Box, I demonstrated the ability to reflect on civic efforts through
a paper on breaking a cultural norm. The cultural norm I broke was holding the door for others. In my paper, I wrote that there were no outside reactions from those I avoided holding the door for, though I felt that they were negatively thinking of me in their minds. I related this to how I would feel negative if someone in proximity did not hold the door for me. I also stated I felt bad for not being polite by holding the door open for others. I related this action to American societal standards in which holding the door open for others is the right thing to do. I noted that for a norm such as this to be broken, many people would have to not hold the door open for others until the societal norm is no more. Persuasion would be needed to garner enough supporters for the norm itself to be eradicated from American culture. This meets the second outcome of the second goal in which I reflected on my civic effort to break a norm and address the civic responsibility of being polite. This also accomplishes the second goal of the Honors Program since I exhibited a commitment to community awareness of what society without a cultural norm would be like.
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The second goal of the Honors Program, to exhibit a commitment to community awareness, involvement, and service, has
been exemplified by me throughout my tenure in the Honors Program. I was able to reflect on my service to others and reflect on how a lack of norms can impact the community. As a result, I’ve attended many services in my church. Thus, I achieved the second goal of the Honors Program.