Honors Week: Festival of Student Scholarship and Creativity

It was Honors Week on steroids this year at TCU, as the University celebrated its first campus-wide Festival of Student Scholarship and Creativity. The week included displays of scholarship, research and creativity around campus representing nearly every discipline.

Chemistry senior Suzanne Hutchinson received the Paul Boller Award, a $1,000 prize given to the top Honors student research, for her study, “Analysis of Biosilicon-Containing Materials for Their Use in Drug-Eluting Stents,” and economics associate Professor Stephen F. Quinn received the student-chosen Honors Faculty Recognition Award, which includes a cash award.

The week wrapped up with a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” at Fort Worth’s Bass Hall by 150-members of Fort Worth-TCU Symphonic Choir and the 75-member TCU Symphony Orchestra.

“Requiem” for research

When leaders at the School of Music were challenged to begin an annual series of presentations featuring the great works of choral repertoire, they started with Verdi’s formidable “Requiem.” Performed as part of the week-long research and creativity festival, the 150-member Fort Worth-TCU Symphonic Choir and the 75-member TCU Symphony Orchestra wowed the audience who packed Bass Hall.

Honors Speaker

The accomplishments of honors students in this country are overshadowed by the media that swarms over Don Imus, “American Idol” and the Virginia Tech shooter, distinguished speaker Benjamin R. Barber said at the Honors Convocation in April.

Barber, a professor of civil society at the University of Maryland and author of 17 books discussing political theories, described honors students across the country as a “rare species” that is “largely unnoticed and largely unrewarded.”

Appalled that honors students everywhere are doing great work and not being recognized, Barber said, “We need to transform America to a country that honors our honors students.”

Barber said liberal arts are being ignored and that colleges are becoming more like “preparatory academies” and that the mission of universities is “largely shoved aside.”

Teachers don’t receive the respect they deserve, Barber said. “Teaching is what keeps the soul alive, the mind alive and most importantly American democracy alive.”

Barber said: “Learning is about power. Knowledge is about power.”

He assured honors students that America will recognize “the beauty of who you are and what you have done.” — BL

Resarch by the numbers:

7,600
Dollars awarded for outstanding research

350
Student presentations

61
Winning projects

53
Honors student presentations

Comment at tcumagazine@tcu.edu.