Crown College Honors set to foster academic excellence

By Samantha Bergum

hen President Andrew Denton began his role this past summer, he shared his vision of Crown College entering a season of "Excellence and growth." The vision quickly spread across all departments. When Chris Mathews, D.M.A., Vice President of Academic Affairs, first arrived on campus, he began dreaming of how to push Crown's academics in that same direction.

Mathews began conversations with President Denton and several faculty members about how they could continue raising the bar and improving academics. With his extensive experience and insight, Mathews believes that revitalizing the Honors program is a top priority. He said that an honors program is not new to Crown, noting, "We did not have to reinvent the wheel; we are just reinvigorating it."

Distinguished Scholars & Big Questions

Mathews got straight to work, drawing inspiration and rallying a team from Crown's stellar faculty to create Crown College Honors. The program is structured as a minor centralizing on the ideas of truth, beauty, goodness, and wisdom and will challenge distinguished scholars to ask big questions with complex answers.

The CCH program is a four-year track. The first two years focus on the Honors community, exploring ideas of truth, faith, science, and culture in Honors-specific courses and holistic retreats. Years three and four train students to be distinguished scholars. They will have the opportunity to go on an immersive academic study abroad trip while working 1:1 with a faculty member on a thesis project.

Programmed Leadership

Justin Winzenburg, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of New Testament and Greek, serves as the Crown College Honors program director.

Mathews noted that Winzenburg—who is in his 12th year of being a professor, is a Crown and honors alumnus, and is a recently published author —was a natural choice to lead the program.

Winzenbug has brought a level of passion and excitement to the program felt throughout Crown and infused into the program's first event in February.

February's inaugural banquet for prospective Honors program students was a massive success. For the event, 19 honors finalists came to campus for a day of small and large group interviews with honors faculty, concluding with a banquet dinner.

Following the campus visit day and banquet, the Honors Committee notified XX students that they were selected for the 2022 Crown Honors cohort. Members of the Honors cohort also receive substantial scholarships.

A Bright Future

Both Mathews and Winzenburg see a bright future for Crown's new Honors program after reflecting on the first banquet and, more importantly, the students who attended.

"The students were the best part of the banquet, shared Winzenburg. "Seeing how quickly they were engaging in discussions on current events and how sharp they were was extremely energizing to me."

Winzenburg will teach the first Honors course this coming fall. The Crown community is looking forward to seeing the level of excellence this new group of students will bring to campus and the new opportunities the initiative will bring to go deeper.