Northeast Regional Honors Council

This strand encourages student proposals that explore how forgiveness, reconciliation, and resilience can be harnessed to create sustainable public or private economic growth, jobs, educational opportunities, advances in technology, or a higher quality of living. How has politics affected the decisions of businesses attempting to endure business cycle fluctuations, domestic and international competition, depletion of resources, the introduction of new technology, and international trade wars? Can new banking and trading technologies provide more affordable ways to amass and invest capital and thereby offer socioeconomic mobility and a shrinking gap between the wealthy and the poor or disenfranchised? We seek your creativity in these technical fields and look forward to reviewing your creative solutions to our theme: “Building Resilience from Tragedy: Understanding Hate, Violence, Loss, and Reconciliation."

​

Reviewed by Mike Tasto (Southern New Hampshire University)

The traumatic violence that rocked the city of Pittsburgh has touched our nation’s schools as well – repeatedly and tragically. The education strand invites proposals that focus on one of our most important social institutions – our schools – and the role education plays in combatting intolerance with understanding. There are many possibilities for important and creative analysis within this strand: proposals might focus on curriculum, teaching practices, student activism, or cultural representations of teachers, students, and schools—among other possibilities. What effects has violence had on the operation of schools? What role can education play in restoring community, recovering from loss, and building the resilience of communities, families, and individuals? What do current debates about what is and is not appropriate material for our nation’s schools reveal about our beliefs and values? And perhaps most importantly, what education will best prepare young citizens for the challenges ahead?

Reviewed by AnnMarie DelliPizzi (Dominican University) and Gwen Kay (SUNY—Oswego)

From its inception, the city we know as Pittsburgh has been a confluence of peoples and cultures, from the earliest Native American-European contact in the mid-seventeenth century until the present. It has also been a hub of trade and commerce, and a symbol of American industrial might since the mid-nineteenth century when Andrew Carnegie began producing steel there. But beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, the “Steel City” was rocked by tremendous economic and social upheaval that challenged both the foundations of its identity and perhaps even its very existence as one of the nation’s great cities. However, by the early 2000s, Pittsburgh had reinvented itself as a regional center for higher education, tourism, and services, largely based on healthcare/medicine, finance, and emerging technologies. Pittsburgh’s resilience as a city is one historical instance among many, and like other examples of communities in crisis and then recovery, Pittsburgh had to confront its own history of injustice and inequality and find a way to transform division and defeatism into innovation and inclusivity.

​

The study of History, Politics and Culture offers unique opportunities to deeply explore events, decisions, and institutions from our past and use our analysis of them to imagine different futures, different relationships, and different ways of thinking. Several fascinating questions can arise from an intentional reading of these categories, such as: How do communities in recovery translate shared experiences of crisis into policy decisions that benefit all its citizens? What are the responsibilities of citizen-stakeholders in the development of their communities and the preservation of communal memory? How can public-private sector partnerships be reimagined to strengthen not only the local economy but also the communal esprit de corps?

​

Reviewed by Darryl Peterkin (Morgan State University) and Marcella McCoy-Deh (Thomas Jefferson University)

Honors is a unique community of students, faculty, and staff who have insatiable curiosities, hunger for knowledge, and a passion for lifelong learning. The Honors Education and Practices strand welcomes proposals that provide examples of the many ways that honors education and practices encourage academic excellence, build strong communities, and create the leaders of tomorrow. Honors can be the leader in higher education by crafting meaningful, engaging, and creative experiences for students, faculty, and staff alike. Through innovative courses, honors contracts, research and creative projects, and community connections, honors can lead academics down a path to reconciliation and healing. Honors programs and colleges have demonstrated unprecedented resilience throughout the events of the past several years, ultimately emerging stronger than before. We welcome presentations that discuss the unique successes of the honors programs and colleges of this region as well as proposals that discuss areas of struggle and reflection. This strand is designed to celebrate collaboration and sharing of strategies to ultimately improve our Honors community as a whole.

Reviewed by Chris Brittain (Ocean County College) and Amy McMillan (SUNY—Buffalo State)

The study of language, the literary arts, popular culture and philosophy often generates insights about human nature and human interactions. The Language, Literature, and Philosophy strand invites proposals that engage this year’s conference theme “Building Resilience from Tragedy: Understanding Hate, Violence, Loss, and Reconciliation." What might our study of language, the literary arts, popular culture and philosophy reveal about the sources and impacts of hate and the violence that hate can ignite in communities? How might our engagement with literary works, film, and other cultural artefacts help communities achieve reconciliation and maintain resilience?

Reviewed by Tanya Radford (Dominican University) and Jessica McCort (Lake Park University)

The disciplines encompassed by science and mathematics hold keys to unlocking the human experience. As formalized processes for explaining natural phenomena, each new discovery has the potential to upend and better explain what we previously held as known. Scientific and mathematical inquiry challenge the cultural and societal inertia of generational knowledge. Even theories which today are by no means considered controversial - evolution by natural selection, game theory, heliocentrism, general relativity, germ theory, to name a few - changed our understanding of the world and how it works when they were conceived. It was not too long ago in our history that the work of scientific discovery could lead to excommunication, incarceration, or even death. And yet, advances in science and mathematics serve to improve society and build our sense of humanity – who we are, what we know, and how we can work together to solve our problems. Without these advances, our efforts to address societal problems also stagnate. We welcome proposals that share your discoveries in the fields of the natural sciences, mathematics, and allied health.

Reviewed by Gwen Kay (SUNY—Oswego) and Amy McMillan (SUNY—Buffalo State)

Media and the arts have a unique ability to simultaneously subvert and unite communities. In many ways, the purpose of media studies and the arts is to challenge an audience by making them face uncomfortable truths about themselves and their pre-conceived notions of fact and reality.

In their representation of political unrest, natural disasters, personal grief, mental illness, or other challenges, media and the arts can ask their audience to test their own resilience and capacity for forgiveness. Thus, these works and the study of them can be therapeutic, cathartic, and comforting. How can art, whether in music, dance, theatre, photography, written art forms (novels, poetry, prose, etc.), sculpture, drawing, and so on, influence societal change? Can enjoyment and analysis of these works bring us together? Can these works and our analysis of them both express traumatic experience and create the possibility of forgiveness and reconciliation?

The Media Studies and the Arts strand welcomes proposals that examine the role of media and the arts in the development and demonstration of resilience in the face of hate, violence, disenfranchisement, marginalization, environmental disruption, and unbearable loss.

Reviewed by Zach Aidala (Bloomfield College) and Chris Brittain (Ocean County College)