A Message from the Dean

WELCOME TO MOSAIC 2022, a review of life in the Judy Genshaft Honors College in 2021. As we all know too well, Covid-19 continued to affect our personal and work lives in 2021, and our students and staff continued to meet its many challenges. It was another difficult year for many, but to me that makes reading through this year’s Mosaic all the more inspiring. Written by various members of our college community, these stories are a testament to the individual strength of character and the collective resilience of our students and staff alike. From the beginning of the pandemic, I have been moved by the determination of our Honors community to make the best of a challenging situation and devise new and creative ways to advance our common values in the classroom and in the world.

The academic profile of our entering class, including a record number of National Merit Scholar Finalists, once again increased, with our first-year students presenting an average ACT score at the 97th percentile nationally. Our students continued to win prestigious national awards through our Office of National Scholarships, author or co-author important research papers with faculty in many fields, and pursue community activism with courage and compassion. Our faculty continued to devise and hone innovative teaching strategies, and our advisors engaged students in an ever-expanding network of internships conducted either remotely or in-person with partners both at home and abroad. We returned to global action with our first post-Covid international program, conducted with great care for the health of our students and the Dominican communities they serve, but also with a mature recognition that risk is a part of life and that important work must sometimes continue in spite of it. And we staged a series of events both in-person and virtually that addressed our college’s “big idea” for 2021-22, Engaged Citizenship – a theme of special significance in light of current threats to the social fabric. All this and more may be found in the following pages.

I hope that after reading Mosaic 2022 you will share my deep pride at the determination of our Honors community to advance our mission to pursue excellence as we teach, learn, create knowledge, and work to make the world a better place.

Charles adams

Judy Genshaft Endowed Dean Judy Genshaft Honors College, University of South Florida