Several multicultural student organizations are partnering with the Honor Committee to form a diversity initiative scholarship that will award $500 to six winners of an essay contest.
The Honor Commitee will award the scholarships in conjunction with the Black Student Alliance, Latino Student Alliance and Asian Student Union to minority students who submit a 750-word opinion essay on the topic of honor and student culture at the University.
The initiative was developed after a discussion with a friend about Honor’s impact — or lack thereof — on minority communities, said third-year College student VJ Jenkins, Honor's vice chair for community relations.
“She said, ‘I don’t see any real benefits of Honor, certainly not in the minority community,’ and that really bothered me,” Jenkins said. “I wanted people to understand that Honor did value them and wanted to provide benefits for them.”
Honor Chair Faith Lyons, a fourth-year Commerce student, said the submitted opinion essays will hopefully provide feedback for the Honor Committee to better engage and reach out to minorities in the future.
“I think a lot of times the feedback we get from students is that Honor looks and sounds a certain way, and there are a lot of different ways that this whole idea of honor and acting honorably is conveyed in different communities,” Lyons said.
The goal is to bridge the gaps between the Honor Committee and students who are rarely involved with its interactions with the University’s student community, and may feel disconnected as a result.
“This is a really exciting way to reach out to work with different communities better to define what honor looks like at our school,” Lyons said.
In addition to the $500 grant given to six students, both award recipients and applicants will be asked to engage as a liaison between Honor Committee and their communities in order to “be a voice” in future collaborations in the community, Lyons said.
The exact details of the liaison position are yet to be concretely determined, and will be adjusted according to the ideas suggested in applicant essays and involved University organizations.
“They will almost be a spokesperson,” Jenkins said of the new position. “Hopefully it’ll be another perspective, that’s really what I’m looking for, someone to come in with fresh ideas.”
The money for the scholarships will be provided by the Honor Committee’s endowment fund, and the award may expand in the future depending on feedback the Honor Committee receives this year, Lyons said.
“It’s more than just giving out a sum,” Lyons said. “We think it’s really important that we continue to engage in this dialogue and we would love for [applicants] to be part of that dialogue.”
Interested students must submit their response essays by Oct. 16.
“Hopefully, through the power of the Honor Committee, those people will be able to realize some of those ambitions and some of those changes they want to see that they’ve already indicated in their essays,” Jenkins said.
This award is only one of many community outreach initiatives the Honor Committee hopes to introduce this school year, Jenkins said.
“We’re trying to be innovative and we’re trying to be exciting, and nothing is out of the realm of possibility for what we’re willing to try,” Jenkins said.
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