Hearts & Minds II Conference Gathers Honors Faculty and Administrators from CCCU Colleges around the Country

From July 30 to August 1, 2009, the John Wesley Honors College hosted the second gathering of Hearts & Minds: Honors Education in a Christian Context on Indiana Wesleyan’s Marion campus. The first Hearts & Minds conference was held at Calvin College in the summer of 2007 to facilitate dialogue among administrators and faculty at Christian colleges about the nature and purpose of collegiate honors education. The Calvin meeting commenced a much-needed national conversation about the pursuit of honors education at faith-based colleges and universities. In the two years since the first Hearts & Minds, the pool of potential conversation partners has continued to grow as the number of institutions with honors programs in the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) has steadily increased.

Thanks to funding from IWU’s Provost Scholarship Initiative, the John Wesley Honors College had the privilege of hosting nearly thirty faculty and administrators from across the country to continue this national dialogue at Hearts & Minds II. The conference included keynote addresses by Drs. Christopher Hall, Stan Rosenberg, and Samuel Schuman, as well as subsequent small-group discussions to consider the implications of their topics to theory and practice within the honors programs represented. Christopher Hall, chancellor of Eastern University in Pennsylvania, drew from his study of patristic theology to explore the importance of holistic honors education. Stan Rosenberg, founding director of Scholarship & Christianity in Oxford (SCIO), focused his lecture on the difficult, but necessary, process of creating an honors education that integrates the goals of three distinctive programs: liberal arts colleges, research universities, and faith-based endeavors. Finally, Samuel Schuman, former president of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and former chancellor both of the University of North Carolina, Asheville, and the University of Minnesota, Morris, addressed the unique perspective of honors education at faith-based institutions and examined their leading role in developing holistic curricula.

The conference also included two roundtable discussions, the first centered on honors undergraduate research and the second on honors learning outcomes. In keeping with the conference theme of fostering academic excellence that holistically engages hearts and minds the series of lectures and roundtable discussions on Friday culminated in an inspiring Eucharist service in the Williams Prayer Chapel, led by Dr. Ken Schenck, dean of IWU’s new seminary.

"The conference was an extraordinary success both in terms of the quality of the presentations and discussions and the bonds of fellowship that were forged among participants," said David Riggs, director of the John Wesley Honors College and co-chair of the CCCU Honors Advisory Board. "I am excited to see how the fruits of this conference will translate into new collaborative efforts among our schools to provide our honors students with first-rate learning and undergraduate research experiences." The CCCU Honors Advisory Board is hopeful that this Hearts & Minds conference will be only the second of many more to come, especially in light of the rapidly growing number of honors programs among CCCU schools. This sentiment was echoed among the post-conference feedback from participants, though most also mentioned that Hearts & Minds II would be a hard act to follow, owing in no small part to the gracious hospitality and flawless planning of Sara Scheunemann, the JWHC program coordinator, who was chiefly responsible for organizing and running the conference.