With a limited budget and a different audience in mind, I redesigned an Honors Lecture Series to focus on student learning, support junior and precarious faculty members, and increase engagement.
The McAllaster Lecture Series predated my time as honors director so when I inherited directing the series when I became honors director, I realized that there was a lot about the series that was no longer feasible for our program. The first iteration of the lecture series was one where well-known scholars from around the globe were flown in to give a talk to the university under the sponsorship of the honors program. What became clear to me was that this was well beyond the budget that I had as honors director and that the lecture series, while pitched as something for the honors program and students at the university, was really more of a prestige academic event and of little interest to the students in the program and school. In order for the lecture to continue it would have to change.
I created a questionnaire for students in the program to gauge their interest, the topics they wanted covered, and any other thoughts they had about the lecture series. What became clear to me as I reviewed their responses was that they didn't understand why a college student would voluntarily go to a lecture when they could just as easily do anything else. That said, they were really interested in a number of topics that were not being covered by other colloquia and talks given by the university. And many of the students pointed out that the majority of speakers who visited the university were male. Female representation was missing in a big way for them.
I created a questionnaire for students in the program to gauge their interest, the topics they wanted covered, and any other thoughts they had about the lecture series. What became clear to me as I reviewed their responses was that they didn't understand why a college student would voluntarily go to a lecture when they could just as easily do anything else. That said, they were really interested in a number of topics that were not being covered by other colloquia and talks given by the university. And many of the students pointed out that the majority of speakers who visited the university were male. Female representation was missing in a big way for them.
I decided that there might be a solution that could keep us within our now very limited program budget, support student learning, and cover topics that students were actually interested in by speakers they wanted to see. The plan I came up with was this: The McAllaster Lecture would be given twice a year by a junior scholar or adjunct who would be paid a modest honorarium for creating a talk on a topic students were interested in for an audience of students that might not be familiar with academic decorum such as an invited lecture. The goal would be to encourage student engagement through the topic itself, the intended delivery, and by having students act as respondents and moderators for the talk. Also every single speaker was either a woman or gender minority.
The result was that student engagement grew exponentially. The lecture was almost always packed and it included speakers ranging from recent graduates speaking about their graduate school research to more accomplished scholars talking about issues that students really cared about. (For example, the talk advertised in the picture to the right was one about the intersection of religious studies, American Christianity, and social justice concerns. It was so well attended that we actually had to move it to another location so everyone could have a seat. |