The Kansas City NCHC trip was a great success. University of Maine students presented four general sessions, 1 round table discussion, and 5 projects in the poster session. It was a great exchanging of ideas and opportunity for networking. UMaine was well-represented, and I was impressed by our students’ work! Before I go farther, I want to thank Beth Kevit for letting me post her pictures. She also wrote a fantastic article about the trip for the Maine Campus. Check it out!
Each day of the conference was packed with events. I kicked off Thursday with two Developing in Honors (DIH) sessions. The DIH sessions were focused on providing tools to administrators to improve their honors programs and honors colleges. I attended the DIH on implementing service learning into an Honors curriculum. I took away some interesting ideas and made some contacts with staff members at other colleges. I also found out that the University of Maine is doing an excellent job in offering Service Learning to its students. I would say we are near the front of the pack in terms of opportunities for service!
After DIH, I joined the City as Text (CAT) session. In CAT, conference goers formed groups with people they did not know and set out to explore different parts of the city. While similar to site-seeing, CAT sought to understand the City on a deeper level. Nine or 10 groups set out to see different parts of the city for three and half hours. Then, we gathered together to analyze what we had seen. This was an interesting process because of Kansas City’s many different faces. It has a financial district and Federal Reserve Bank (which I visited during CAT), a variety of art museums (everything from contemporary to ancient to abstract combinations of the two), a market, a train station, a weekly rodeo, bars and restaurants, over 30 fountains, and the list goes on. Even with the CAT activity and the time I spent exploring the town, I struggled to get a complete picture of Kansas City. All I can say is that I sensed its regional importance–especially during my visit to the Money Museum, which outlined the history of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. On my way out, I stopped in the gift shop and used my cell phone to snap a photo of the description of the two statutes outside of the building. (Yet, for some reason, I never took a picture of the statues.)
I found pictures of the actual statues at this website.
Many members of the UMaine contingent commented on the city’s light traffic and small crowds. One member suggested that the city’s large geographic size contributed to the light density of people. Another mentioned that the Power and Light District seemed empty because it was only completed in 2007–at the height of the real estate bubble.
The Power and Light district was a very modern, very clean city center for entertainment. Restaurants and bars surrounded a main stage, which offered the best of venues for rock/pop performances. There were many interesting sites within walking distance of our hotel. The easiest way to get around was by taxi, but many of us made ample use of the impressive bus system too. Across the street from our hotel there was a wide open square, and we had a nice view of this fountain and statue (below).
Friday was a particularly exciting day. There were several dozen presentations to choose from. There were several highlights for me. One of these, The Social Networking and Honors session, was packed. Students from Central Florida’s honors program explained how they use Facebook, Twitter, and Google to enhance their “Honors Congress” student organization’s ability to build a stronger community of Honors students. The discussion became unexpectedly heated as the audience tried to define the limits of their trust in social networking tools. All in all, I think everyone at the session took home some great information. While there was some disagreement, there was an open sharing of ideas and stickers! (Maybe we should have stickers?) Another highlight was “Keeping Current: Honors on the Radio” presented by Ben Goodman and Beth Kevit of UMAINE. The chemistry they have developed on their WMEB morning show, DriveTime, clearly gave their presentation a boost. I was especially excited to offer them technical support in the form of my outdated Dell laptop. (The Mariott did not provide the necessary accessories for Ben’s MAC.) There were so many other great presentations, and I would be remiss if I did not once again commend UMaine for an excellent showing. (Here’s a few more photos from Beth.)
Bradie, Breana, and Mimi presented “Music in the Honors Classroom.” (below)
Francis and Anthony presented “Effects of Arsenic on Renal Development and Function in Zebra Fish Embryos” during their poster session.
During the day, Friday was jam-packed with idea-sharing and academic presentations; but it was time for a little fun in the evening. I sat down for dinner at one of Ted Turner’s restaurants with a few others from the Maine contingent. Then, we joined the rest of the conference goers and headed to the gala at the Midland Theater. The gala featured the impressive talents of blues artist Samantha Fish. It was a kind of hard rock blues style with plenty of fast-paced, distortion heavy riffs. Charlie called it “Chicago Blues.” The venue was definitely a sight to see. I took a picture with my cell phone from the stage. On the highest balcony level, you can see a beautiful crystal chandelier. We went up to explore and found bar-seating around the chandelier and an impressive view of the stage from up high. There are several excellent pictures of the Midland at their website, http://www.midlandkc.com/rental.php.
An up close picture of the upper balcony.
image from midland website
The biggest highlight of our Saturday was probably the guest speaker, Aron Ralston. You may have heard of the hiker who was trapped for days before he had to cut off his own arm to escape. That’s Aron. His life story was compelling and he was an excellent speaker. Before becoming an expert, outdoor adventurer, Aaron was an honors student. After college, he worked as an engineer for five years at Intel. Then, he quit. His first priority became the outdoors. What followed is an incredible story. Throughout his presentation, he made personal connections to the Honors conference, and he called on the conference goers to carve out their own identities. He encouraged us to explore our own path rather than taking the one placed before us. Impressed, I bought his book, Between a Rock and a Hard Place. Not only does this guy have a talent for speaking and mastering the outdoors, he’s also a riveting writer. I highly reccommend it, and I am eagerly waiting for the movie based on his experiences to be released. It is called “127 Hours.”
Believe it or not, there’s so much more that I haven’t even mentioned yet! The American Jazz Museum, The Negro Baseball Leagues Museum, many impressive fountains, an exciting rodeo, jazz clubs and food, food, food! Despite all that I saw, there was even more that I didn’t have time to see. And of course, the reason why we were there was the conference. I made contacts with possible providers of future employment, took notes on ways to improve our Honors College, and exchanged ideas with other administrators. What was the best part of the conference? The Honors College was able to send 15 students to it! Are you a student with ongoing research? Submit a poster proposal. Got an idea to improve Honors? Tell us about it. You can go to NCHC 2011.
Check. It. Out.
-Jonathan
