I think an important theme within the Honors College is “Leader vs. Leader.” The Honors College cohort was decided by which people exhibited a love for learning, strong leadership skills, creative problem solving skills, and many other important qualities. Because everyone in the Honors College exhibits such outstanding leadership skills and is so passionate about his or her school work, it can make matters in the classroom such as working together difficult.
It’s sounds like an odd problem to have too many leaders in one room, but I promise that it can in fact be an issue. When everyone is used to being the one taking to the driver’s-seat during class discussions, or group projects, things can get chaotic. This topic presented itself to me when Dr. Ostroff left us alone to discuss naming our cohort. We all had so much to say and so many strong opinions that it became hard for the discussion to remain orderly. We solved this problem with the “talking stick”, which was just a water bottle we passed around to take turns sharing. This helped everyone’s voice get heard and we were able to have an orderly and efficient conversation as equals.
It is things like this that make the Honors College what it is. Who would think that we, as intelligent and mature individuals, would behave like kindergarteners just to try to be heard? This is an unusual problem that none of us expected, and yet we solved it together. I am thrilled to be a part of such a fun program and can not wait to run into more “problems”, like having too many leaders, and continue to solve these innovatively and creatively alongside of my fellow, brilliant Honors College cohort inductees.
Kennedy Zak
Our Questions, Our Voices 