Student Honors Council established in 2019

A group of 15 students have taken the lead in building community and relationships to boost retention and diversity among honors students. 

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615.966.7078 | 01/27/2020

In 2019, a group of 15 honors students have taken the lead in developing an Honors Student Council, a task force working to build community and relationships among honors students in order to boost retention and diversity among students in the program. 

“(The Honors College) is a big group, so it can be difficult to meet people when you first come in,” said Crockett. We are the student gateway to the Honors College,” said Meredith Crockett, a senior law, justice and society major, and president of the student council.

In addition to helping the Honors College faculty and staff field questions and deal with the day-to-day operation, the student council members planned several events for honors students in 2019 and are planning several more get-togethers in 2020. Events in 2019 included holiday parties, trivia nights and an open house for the new Honors College headquarters, a free-standing house on the north side of campus. They routinely drew 100 to 150 people, Crockett said.

“The kind of students we attract to the Honors College are students who are very academically focused, and social events often do not come naturally to them or are something they are very interested in,” said Crockett. “We have found that honors students in the past have been on the fringes.

“Most honors students are not in social clubs, and they are mostly in demanding majors like engineering and biology. What we are trying to offer is fun times! A space where people can come and have fun, and not worry about their next paper,” Crockett said.

“I’m happy to be able to facilitate a space where anybody and everybody can feel welcome,” Crockett said. “We bring together a bunch of students from all different backgrounds. There isn’t a group that could disagree more on many issues, but the fact that we have this one thing in common, the Honors College, encourages them to want to come back.”

In addition to building community, the council is building a foundation to be a tool in increasing diversity among honors students. Diversity is a challenge for honors programs nationwide, as race and income are two factors that play a major role in the numbers of minority students enrolled in honors programs, said Crockett, who is also one of the founding members of the Black Student Union and the Diverse Student Coalition at Lipscomb.

The council has worked to develop a partnership with the Office of Intercultural Development to reach more of Lipscomb’s minority students, and policies are in the works to allow on-campus students to apply to join the Honors College as they enter their sophomore year, considering GPA and campus involvement as criteria, which should draw more minority applicants, she said.

The council’s plans for the spring semester are to expand its slate of social events and study nights and possibly provide tutoring, Crockett said.