Congratulations to five Lee College honors students who were selected to present their research at the Gulf Coast Intercollegiate Consortium (GCIC) in Houston recently. The annual academic conference brings together educators and honors students from across the Gulf Coast region to encourage and promote student presentations and publication.
According to Dr. Georgann Ward, Honors Program Coordinator at Lee College, few students have the opportunity to present their work at academic conferences like this one. In fact, faculty members typically begin this type of work in graduate school or once they become professional educators.
“One of the most exciting parts of my job is to see how students grow in the process of revising work for a ‘real’ audience at an academic conference. Through this process, they understand how their ideas truly matter and devise the best ways of expressing those ideas to others,” said Ward. “Lee College’s commitment to student presentations at conferences shows that it is important to our college to professionalize students and also to make them most competitive as they transfer to a four-year institution.”
The students applied to the conference and were selected in a “blind scoring” by judges associated with the Gulf Coast Intercollegiate Honors Council. Judges selected their research based on a high level of interest, purpose and appeal.
Ryan Lara, Noe Sanchez, Lindsey Sanford, and Amber Fanning shared their papers from the Human Condition, a combined English and Humanities class at Lee College. Their work used a philosophical “lens” to analyze a film or work of literature. Each semester, students in the Human Condition complete this type of paper – called a seminar paper – and present their work to the Lee College community as a practice for potential conferences they might be invited to attend.
Dinah Lemonier wrote her paper in Steve Showalter’s honors Government class, and though it was a film analysis, she used research about the Red Scare to analyze themes in the film more deeply.
“It is always a thrill to see how our students have grown over the course of a semester or year,” said Jerry Hamby, co-instructor of the Human Condition. “Their papers demonstrate increasing levels of sophistication, and their level of confidence is markedly greater. The students also get a chance to compete with the best and brightest peers from other colleges. Our honors students always make us proud.”
The Lee College Honors Program serves academically talented and highly motivated students. Students entering the nationally recognized program will experience enrichment of course materials and the freedom to work independently and collaboratively with faculty members who encourage lively, engaging discourse and activity both inside and outside the classroom. Enrollment in Honors classes is limited and classes are taught in a seminar format.
- Noe Sanchez, The Complex and Versatile “Boy Codes” in “Vulgaria”
- Lindsey Sandford, Bohemian Rhapsody and Freddy Mercury: The Un-Masculine Man
- Amber Fanning, The Conditioning of Choice: Existentialism in a Clockwork Orange
- Ryan Lara, Hardening of a Soul: Racism, Masculinity, and Dehumanization in Fences
- Dinah Lemonier, More than Black and White: A Film Analysis of Good Night and Good Luck