Wednesday, March 8, 2023 marked a significant moment for our Honors Progam. La Sierra University Honors seniors virtually met with University of Charleston freshmen to discuss Brené Brown’s Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone. This was an exciting opportunity for two different honors programs to come together to not only share their thoughts on the book but also life perspectives from west coast to east coast. Hear more about this event from Dr. Lora Geriguis (co-professor for UHNR 424 Serving, Knowing & Serving) and Isaac Estrada (Biomedical Science, Class of 2023).
The idea for this event emerged from conversations that Honors Director Oliver Sutter had while attending NCHC22, the National Collegiate Honors Council conference in Dallas last fall 2022, where he met the two Honors Program directors –– Dr. Hallie Chillag (Social Science) and Dr. Kara Fisher (Political Science) –– from the University of Charleston (in West Virginia) . He learned that they would be reading Brene Brown’s Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone (2017) with their first-year students as part of a class that sounded similar to our UHNR 101 (“Beginning to Seek”) class. As he and I planned our approach to co-teaching the UHNR 424 (“Serving, Knowing, Seeking”) class for the first time, he pitched the idea that we would include Brown’s book in our course. We decided to add Brown’s text to be read alongside our two other book selections, Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and June Strong’s Project Sunlight (1980), as a trio of books approaching the subject of how to live in a troubled world, each from a very different perspective. The idea was that these readings would support the students’ worldview paper writing, which is the cornerstone of the UHNR 424 Seeking, Knowing & Serving course.
The opportunity to spend an hour with the University of Charleston students reflecting together on the issues addressed in Brown’s book was really priceless as a way of enhancing the comparative worldview strategy that undergirds the UHNR 424 class as a whole. While our students are seniors looking back on their college experience and looking ahead to the next steps in their professional and personal lives, the University of Charleston (UC) students are first-year students just getting adjusted to college after having had a COVID-inflected high school experience, a distinction which formed part of our discussion. Another area of contrast that the event highlighted was a geographical and regional one, given that the UC students are informed by their Appalachian cultural context as compared to our urban and Southern California landscape.
The discussion was a free-flowing one with each set of students posing questions to the other. Among the stand-out moments for me was listening to our students highlighting the Adventist component of our campus culture and hearing the UC students prompting consideration of the characteristics that might identify Honors students across the board. There was a genuine interest from each group in hearing from the other, and our La Sierra students were excellent representatives of our university on this cross-continental stage.
— Dr. Geriguis (Honors Faculty)
On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, UHNR 424 Seeking, Knowing & Serving met with the Honors freshmen cohort from the University of Charleston in West Virginia. The idea of connecting with the freshmen started when Honors Director Oliver Sutter attended a conference and met the Honors Director from the University of Charleston. The two directors realized that both classes would be reading the same book, Braving the Wilderness, a #1 New York Times bestseller by Brené Brown.
During our meeting, we began with simple introductions. One very distinct difference between the two groups –– outside of the age gap –– was that the West Virginia freshmen group was composed predominantly of women, with only two males out of the group of 14 or so. In comparison, the La Sierra senior cohort consists of nine females and seven males.
Like many of La Sierra’s Honors cohorts, the freshmen from West Virginia predominately majored in STEM fields. However, it was interesting to note that they varied in majors,unlike at La Sierra where the majors are usually concentrated in biology. Along with a myriad of other characteristics,both collectively and individually, these demographic variations influenced the reading experience for each individual and shaped the discussions held in each of the respective classes.
To conclude, I asked two members of my cohort their thoughts about the meet-up. Viviana Williams (Neuroscience, Class of 2023) shared, “I found it interesting to hear how much our experiences and ages impacted how we viewed the world.” Brandon Ching (Biomedical Science, Class of 2023) said, “I had a really good time connecting with students from the other university; it was intriguing to see how our opinions can differ despite having grown up in different places. It is also nice to know that we come from universities of similar sizes so that also influences the way that we think to some degree. Overall, it was very insightful, and it definitely helped to impact my worldview.”
— Isaac Estrada (Biomedical Science, Class of 2023)