Dear Honors Alumni Friends,

The 10th Honors class will enter the program soon, signing the Honors book as you did with their favorite Ben and Jerry’s flavor. Then we move through the familiar rhythms of the academic year. Among the customary, there is much new:

A revised first-year sequence: The new HP100/101 sequence, The Ethical and Social Implications of Research, will focus more on the skills necessary to thrive in the program, especially for the sophomore problem solving course and the thesis. We will also handle the computer differently, in effect, turning the university’s computer programming requirement into competency based modules within the course. Any student, who enters the course with the necessary competency (for engineers in Matlab), receives an A and receives credit for that requirement. Gary Kelly has agreed to teach the sequence for the next two years, and we will be using Honors TA’s for the programming component.

Strategic planning: The Honors Council developed a set of strategic goals to guide the program over the next five years (attached). You will notice that important goals include extending honors or enrichment opportunities outside the program. In fact, we are well underway with this. For example, Honors Council members are working in the School of Engineering to develop honors options for some of the engineering science courses like Statics or Material Science, and the School of Arts and Sciences has a plan for a variety of honors options. The purpose of this particular initiative is to help Clarkson University become a place where there are a variety of options for talented students to exercise their abilities, especially in their first and second years.

Strategic plans and you alums: You will also notice that our plans include you. We want to use your experience and expertise to guide the future development of the program and toward that end will be establishing an Alumni/Advisory Council. Although our plans are still indefinite here, we also hope to develop ways in which the program can be helpful to you in your first decade after Clarkson. If you have ideas about how we can continue to help you, I would welcome them. Alumni participation in last year’s Honors orientation was a great success, and I am still looking for some more alumni to participate in this year’s—on Friday afternoon, August 26 beginning at 2 o’clock.

You just never know: Each Honors cohort adds something to the program. Honors Program Performance Night was the brainchild of this year’s summer researchers. And performances there were: Tim Smith, a pre-frosh, sang the banana phone song while dancing and juggling 3 stuffed fish (he may have watched a little too much Saturday Night Live while growing up); this year’s Honors RA Niall Mangan and four pre-frosh women sang a touching version of “Danny Boy.” There was an epic poem, with singing accompaniment. It’s the you-never-know factor that, perhaps, I enjoy most about the program.

Among the customary, there is also much new in my life. I am up to four grandchildren now, with Audrey Craig Scarlett (born last October 5) being the newest member of the family. All four grandchildren were here last week. We logged a lot of beach time, had a make-your-own sundae night (whipped cream is a big hit with kids), and the house rang with cries of “granddad, granddad” which my grandsons say with peculiar staccato beat. When your children come along, I would be glad to serve as a consulting service. For example, How I Became a Pirate, is a great book for a three-year-old, and my two-year-old grandson really likes the Bob the Builder Legos I gave him for his birthday. There is a lot of the you-just-never-know factor with grandchildren too.

Before closing, I would invite your feedback on the newsletter and what you would like to see in it. Thanks and kudos to Sam St. John and Suzann Cheney, the new Honors assistant, for their work on it. We have been slowed by some problems in the publication office, but hope to have an improved web-based version for our next version. If you have not completed our alumni survey and still want to, I have included it. By the way, your feedback has been valuable to us, as in the thinking about the first-year sequence, which had by far the weakest evaluations.

Almost honorably yours,

David Craig