Opening up the Honors Program

More often than not, when I mention to someone that I’m in the Honors Program, they ask me one of two questions: “We have an Honors Program?” or “How did you get into that?” This is usually the beginning of a few more questions, which end in me explaining that I’m not taking the University Core because I’m taking the Honors Core, and I heard about it through my admission letter. Sometimes, I’d get curious looks, like they weren’t sure if I was making it all up. Other times, they’d look at me like I was holding out on them. How come they didn’t even get a chance to be part of this? Either way, I was starting to see that there was a problem here.

I wondered, how prestigious the Honors Program could be if hardly anyone knew about it? Apparently, you could only apply if you were invited. If you weren’t, then you didn’t even hear about it, so you wouldn’t get the chance to apply even if you wanted to. Since when did an Honors Program have to be so snobbish?

Luckily, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. With a new director and a new vision for the program, there are major changes taking place. During his Director’s Convocation earlier this year, Dr. Brad Stone acknowledged the elitism that took place in the years prior. He stated that “the reason LMU’s Honors Program has come off as elitist is because it has not occupied its correct place in the University as a whole … Some of it is Honors’ fault. Honors has not made enough attempts in the past to be a member of the greater LMU community.” He wants to change that trend.

Sophomore political science and communication studies double major Casey Linsey said that she “definitely felt [the elitism] as a freshman.” (“I would be lying if I said I did not participate in it as well,” she said.) When her class came in, they were told that they were the “best students of the University, the leaders on this campus.” If in the past the Honors Program had been unified and well-structured, and if it was part of its core that it should be closed-off, I can understand how this could have happened. However, I was starting to believe that it wasn’t well-structured at all. It actually seemed pretty disjointed.

There were requests to older Honors students, asking them not to “jade” the freshmen. There were some upperclassmen who voiced their excitement for the changes with a twinge of bitterness in the realization that they wouldn’t be experiencing them. Then there’s the fact that the junior Honors class has had a different director each year. Perhaps the only constant has been the program’s supervisor, Beatrice Henson O’Neal, who, according to Linsey, has “helped [them] through the transitions.”

The Honors Program needed some tweaking, and only someone truly dedicated to the program could do it. According to Dr. Stone, “Honors is an academic and intellectual community that also engages greater LMU and the world.” It is supposed to be “a microcosm of values held by the larger institution,” so it makes no sense to close itself off from everyone else. There had never been much incentive for other departments to get involved with Honors. Now, Dr. Stone is working with other departments of the University to make Honors less isolated and more involved with the LMU community.

Dr. Stone realizes that “the current method of applying to Honors penalizes … those who were told that there are honors programs in college that need to be applied to independently of their admissions applications.” In the future, prospective and admitted students will be informed of the program, so everyone will have a chance to apply (or at least be aware that LMU actually has an Honors Program). There are some who aren’t as enthusiastic about allowing more people to apply to the program, but perhaps that kind of thinking is what made Honors seem so elitist in the first place.

There’s also the issue of the application process. While Dr. Stone can’t divulge too much information about what he’s planning for the process itself, there’s no doubt that it’ll be different from the application I went through as an incoming freshman. My biggest issue with this is fairness. I would like the application process to be fair to both the applicant and current Honors students. At least make them write an essay. After all, I had to send in my Honors application and essay during that part of high school when senioritis had taken over, and I would have rather been tasered than see another essay prompt.

As of right now, there still isn’t a formal application process, but if you’re interested and never got a chance to apply, get in touch with Dr. Stone. It is my hope that these changes will lead to progress, not only for the Honors Program itself, but for LMU as a whole.

 This is the opinion of Angelica Cadiente, a freshman business management major from Los Angeles, Calif. Please send comments to jmartinez@theloyolan.com.