HONORS
Celebrates 60
Q&A with David S. Williams,
Associate Provost and Director of the Honors Program
u You are now in your 16th year as director of the Honors Program, and you are the first person in your role to have been an Honors student at UGA yourself. What has changed since you were a student? I guess first I’d like to point out what has stayed the same. When I was introduced to the Honors Program in the 1970s as a high schooler from Marietta, I was told that it could offer me the chance to tailor my student experience and personalize it through individualized advising and meaningful contact with stellar faculty members in small classes, as well as the ability to meet and interact with fellow students who were similarly academically driven. These things no doubt still remain at the heart of our program. I think that what has changed the most is that we now offer such a broad array of opportunities beyond the classroom to a much larger number of students—from the 800 or so of my day to our current number of around 2,500. I should also add that we have moved locations since my student days from the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building to the current home of the Honors Program, the Moore College building, which was renovated and rededicated for the Honors Program in 2001. Every day when I walk in, I am still struck by how beautiful our campus setting is—on North Campus, next to Herty Field and the Chapel Bell, and across the street from the quintessential college-town— it just looks to me like how college is supposed to look. u You just mentioned that the Honors Program offers a broad array of opportunities. What specifically would you point to or single out? I should start by saying that we helped to pioneer a number of programs that are now known as experiential learning
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UGA HONORS PROGRAM MAGAZINE FALL 2020
Cassie Wright
Dr. David S. Williams discusses topics ranging from his own past association with the Honors Program to today’s successes and tomorrow’s challenges.
opportunities, which are available to all undergraduates at UGA. For example, the highly popular Double Dawgs initiative, which allows students to earn concurrent undergraduate and master’s degrees, started as the Honors Combined Degree Program. The Honors Program also provides campus-wide leadership with regard to undergraduate research through CURO—the Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities— which was started to serve Honors
students but is now available to all undergraduate students at UGA, regardless of their Honors status. I am very pleased that UGA stands virtually alone in the nation in facilitating faculty-mentored undergraduate research in any academic discipline for up to four years. That speaks to the quality of our students as well as the commitment of our faculty. Beyond these sorts of programs, there are a number of Honors-specific
