In Honors we believe learning happens best with and for other people. Which is to say, we think the words "Honors" and "Community" belong together — a belief borne out by our social event calendar every year. As a result, many of our students form enduring, anchoring, and challenging friendships around the Honors seminar table — and beyond.
CommunityA weekly come-and-go coffee hour in the students' own designated Honors Lounge is the steady pulse of our common life — where faculty and students chat about everything from Marvel movies to the art of dying well — but Honors students also enjoy events planned by the Honors Directors or by their own elected Honors Student Association. You can expect class trips, informal dinners, game nights, picnics, roller skating, paper writing parties, pancake breakfasts, film screenings, service projects, and an annual banquet.
This is why our mission statement describes the Honors Community as "an intellectual koinonia* with transformative effects in its members, and through them, in the university, in the church, in the professions, and in local communities."
*Koinonia comes from the Greek koine, common: communion, association, partnership; fellowship; a gift, donation, or contribution. (See Liddell, Scott, and Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon.)
A true koinonia should neither be a closed community, lacking in hospitality or gratitude, nor a totally open one, lacking in intimacy or coherence. For this reason, the fundamental dynamic of Honors koinonia at Union University may be conceived as a supple lucidity: lucid enough that we can seat the table for the feast but supple enough that we can welcome unexpected guests.
Coffee hour: Students and faculty gather in the Honors Lounge every Friday afternoon for free coffee and treats, in what has become one of our most dearly held communal times. Come to pursue a pressing question, or just to draw on the blackboard walls and relax.
During freshman orientation, Honors upperclassmen are eager to meet and welcome the new students, so they host them for Welcome Breakfasts in their dorms the day before classes start.
Once the weather cools off for fall, look for us learning traditional folk dances at the annual Honors Community Cèilidh in downtown Jackson. Students can get a taste of the city beyond Union and learn some new names and faces (and steps) along the way.
Campus & Community Day sees Honors students headed out en masse to tackle service projects around Jackson. For the last several years we've partnered with the City Parks Dept. to clean up playgrounds. In 2021 we took nearly 50 students
The Beauty Trip: Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago — The Beauty class travels each spring to visit art museums and experience the architecture of a major American city at minimal cost to the student.
The final Honors Signature course, Justice, takes its students on a field trip to Memphis to visit the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, where Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated.
Each spring the community gathers to view an art gallery put on by the freshman class for their Beauty course. Installed on the top floor of the Logos Library, this temporary gallery draws upperclassmen and fellow freshmen alike, eager to remember and discuss their own experiences in the Beauty class.
Last but not least, the Honors Banquet falls just before finals, as a culmination of all the good things each year holds. From playful skits to formal graduate recognitions, it's a night of fun and reflection for students and faculty alike.
The Honors Student Association: The HSA is the student leadership arm of the Honors Community. Elected student leaders plan special community events, make improvements to the lounge, and act as Honors' voice in Student Senate. HSA officers are elected every January and serve one-year terms.
Justin Barnard
Scott Huelin
Joy Moore
Anna Tobler
Jeremy Blaschke
Jason Crawford
Phil Davignon
Fonsie Guilaran
Christopher Jones
David Thomas
Joshua Veltman