2008 Woodie Awards
Leaders, don't forget your followers
Seth Davis
Opinions Editor
Issue date: 10/6/08 Section: Forum
The University Honors Program will be hosting the National Association of African American Honors Programs conference October 16-18.
Along with honors conferences, the program provides, just to name a few, mentorship for its participants, scholarships for honors students, special internships and graduate study opportunities and challenging courses designed especially for UHP students with limited enrollment, according to the program's page on TSU's Web site.
Not to take away from the entity that I was formerly a financially active member of, but I feel that the honors program, like many other entities on campus, is running the danger of being merely for the benefit of its own, and the privileged others who get their GPAs overlooked by advisers who see "leadership potential" in them.
I was inspired to write this sounding off because last week I was going to dinner and I saw a couple of my peers dressed in suits and brief cases in the faculty dining hall.
Curiosity led me to ask one of them what the special occasion was. She then told me that they were being interviewed by Gallup.
Gallup is a company that studies human nature and does polls all over the world.
They specialize in programs and opportunities in management education and leadership development for students.
That then made me think of when a couple of my peers were being interviewed to attend the Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute, which is a recruitment conference and career fair for students attending public HBCUs.
According to www.thurgoodmarshallfund.com, students will also be able to take part in workshops with the nation's leading executives.
Many of my peers found out about this opportunity in William Latham's Foundations of Leadership class.
The point I'm trying to get to is, why are most of these opportunities only advertised to the honors program, their classes, and the adviser's picks?
For instance, the minimum GPA requirement for the Thurgood Marshall Institute is a 3.0, which means more than the students with honors program minimum GPAs of 3.4 can apply.
Along with honors conferences, the program provides, just to name a few, mentorship for its participants, scholarships for honors students, special internships and graduate study opportunities and challenging courses designed especially for UHP students with limited enrollment, according to the program's page on TSU's Web site.
Not to take away from the entity that I was formerly a financially active member of, but I feel that the honors program, like many other entities on campus, is running the danger of being merely for the benefit of its own, and the privileged others who get their GPAs overlooked by advisers who see "leadership potential" in them.
I was inspired to write this sounding off because last week I was going to dinner and I saw a couple of my peers dressed in suits and brief cases in the faculty dining hall.
Curiosity led me to ask one of them what the special occasion was. She then told me that they were being interviewed by Gallup.
Gallup is a company that studies human nature and does polls all over the world.
They specialize in programs and opportunities in management education and leadership development for students.
That then made me think of when a couple of my peers were being interviewed to attend the Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute, which is a recruitment conference and career fair for students attending public HBCUs.
According to www.thurgoodmarshallfund.com, students will also be able to take part in workshops with the nation's leading executives.
Many of my peers found out about this opportunity in William Latham's Foundations of Leadership class.
The point I'm trying to get to is, why are most of these opportunities only advertised to the honors program, their classes, and the adviser's picks?
For instance, the minimum GPA requirement for the Thurgood Marshall Institute is a 3.0, which means more than the students with honors program minimum GPAs of 3.4 can apply.
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