An Honors Community

Writer Emma Bittner Designer Emma Bittner

Fostering a sense of community on campus can be difficult. You’re in a new place, with thousands of new people. You’re trying to figure out what you want to do with your life and now you have to find where you belong --- it's overwhelming. For many people, this sense of community is found in Greek life, sports, or clubs on campus, however, for some, it’s within their academic groups.

The Moody Honors Program, the new and improved honors program, stemming from the previous Senior Fellows program, is one of the most prominent communities in the college of communication. Each cohort, built of 30 freshmen and ten sophomores, are given the opportunity to get closer than the usual class over the span of the two foundational courses of the program.

Only two years old, the Moody Honors Program is making incredible strides to the college experience by combining experiential learning and finding a home on campus into one.

“Community,” said Brad Love, Moody Honors Professor. “The notion of community is clearly important to honors students and I really see it as an outsider among you all. You support each other and the way you help each other grow is impressive.”

The design of small cohorts of students was intentional and has proved to be one of the biggest assets of the program.

“One of the benefits of our honors program, compared to many others, is that it is relatively small,” said Dave Junker, Director of the Moody College Honors Program. “This makes it easy for students to get to know each other and take a sense of ownership for themselves and each other.”

The Moody Honors Program presents itself differently than the typical honors program at UT. It flies under the radar, while it is prestigious and difficult to get into, it doesn’t project a sense of elitism. “The honors program aims to be a good citizen of the college,” Junker said. “We want top students and we have top students, but we don't want to be elitist. The mission isn’t to be elitist.”

While the program’s goal isn’t to appear as superior to the rest of the college, the honors program still has a lot of prestige and aims to include the rest of the college. “It offers all the benefits of attending an elite public research university with a worldclass communication school, without losing the intimacy and community you might get from a small liberal arts college,” Junker said. “Getting in is hard. Despite this, the honors program offers public events every semester that are open to everyone and are made

better by when students from every major and year attend and participate.”

Junker and Love applaud the students in the program and often reflect on how lucky they are to be surrounded by such dedicated students daily.

“UT students are impressive,” Love said. “I have a hard time getting my brain around how accomplished these students are. It’s mind blowing, you can only read the stuff and have the discussions and wonder where did these people come from and how are they so good at stuff and so generous.”

The Moody Honors Program has much to offer for students now and in future classes, but none of it would have been possible without the years of behind the scenes work.

“So many people, Laura Brown, Associate Dean Mark Bernstein and Junker, just to name a few, worked so hard behind the scenes for no gratitude rather than a job well done,” Love said. “Everyone already had a full time job and jumped on voluntarily because they thought it would be beneficial to the students. They brought this program to life from the idea that we could serve young people better.”

The Moody Honors Program just finished it’s second year as a full functioning program and has high hopes for future cohorts and incoming Moody students.

“We are lucky in Moody in general, but especially in the honors program, to have so many students who are not only motivated to succeed in conventional terms but who are motivated to understand themselves and the world better,” Junker said. “When there is trust and enthusiasm in the learning experience, there is no better place to be as a professor.”