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The Renee Crown university honors program has elevated the excellence of both students
and faculty at Syracuse University since its inception.
The point of the honors program is to identify really promising students and invest resources,
financial and personal, and mentoring them, and caring for them and nurturing them so
that they can achieve more than they ever thought it was reasonable for them to aspire to.
The honors program is not just providing students with an array of courses, it is so much more.
The level of students, the caliber of students we are able to recruit and keep here is really
changing the entire landscape of the University.
Syracuse University's honor program differs from all other honor's programs in the United
States because we don't have a curriculum that defines you...you define the curriculum.
We call it an attribute-based curriculum. And trust me, there is no other program like
this in higher education.
My participation in the Renee Crown University Honors program has impacted me in many ways.
I would say the biggest way is however, that it has constantly raised the expectation for
myself. In terms of what I expect of myself academically.
Being a part of the honors program for me has been an incredible opportunity because
of the different class that you are able to take as an honors student. For example, I
took bio ethics and disability my junior year. The professor who I have continued to be in contact
with. It gave me a new perspective on views in medicine as a future physician. The honors
program and their advisors have also really helped me in my journey to apply for medical
school, apply for scholarships, like Marshall and Gates Cambridge and Fulbright.
They have been really helpful with providing me with advice and guidance though out my
college career. My advisors have been very helpful helping me navigate through my courses,
figuring out what I need to do to graduate. Figuring out scholarship opportunities for
myself. They were instrumental in helping me figure out how to apply for the NSF graduate
fellowship that I won. My advisor my freshmen year was the first person to expose me to
research, which is what I want to pursue as a career now.
My experiences with the honor program have been great from the start my freshman year.
I'm an art history major and I actually took both of the intro to art history courses as
honors courses. And so instead of a 200 person lecture had 6 kids in first semester class
and 5 in the next semester. And having that small class size really made a huge difference
in my ability to converse with the professor and really have my questions answered and
really engage with the material at a much deeper level.
I think that the Renee Crown university honors program has had such an incredible impact
on my experience here at Syracuse. The course work is a little harder, but I think it also
makes it more rewarding. You are not just getting what’s in the textbook and that’s
all. You are going above and beyond with more challenging materials. You need to think a
little bit harder, and your classmates are at that much higher a level, so the whole
tide rises and lifts all the boats together.
Every student is architect of her or his own education. That’s one of the most important
things we need the students understand. And there is nothing that allows us to do this
more deeply than the Renee Crown University honor's capstone experience.
It can be a creative work, or a research paper, or an architectural model, or a play, or a
musical...but it is the culmination of their four years of working closely with faculty
and working in a community setting with other smart kids.
I think being in the Renee Crown University honors program has really prepared me for
the professional world n the sense that it really helped me engage with deeper more analytical
questions surrounding my work. Like, for example, I produced a film for my capstone project.
So I really think that my experience in this program has really invited me to engage more
thoughtfully and constructively with my work.
What students tell us is that they have a pride in ownership, that they have created
something uniquely their own, and very often they carry the intensity and excitement that
work over into graduate work or scholarship work, or even their professional lives.
Without the capstone, I would never have completed actual original undergraduate research. And
so undertaking this project, and really engaging with the scholarship was something that I
needed to learn how to do. And with my capstone advisor, professor Sasha Scott, I was able
to really learn how to be an art historian.
As I look back on my experiences here at Syracuse University, particularly with the Renee Crown
University honors program, I feel that I was constantly challenged, to think differently,
to go outside of myself and my comfort zone.
This fall I'm headed to Duke University School of law. I’m doing a JDLM joint program.
And its really tough to get into that program and I think being part of Renee Crown has
really helped me get there.
They have been an incredible resource, and the support that they have given to students
like me is really been incredible.
The program has been so great for so many people to really help them identify where
they want to go and help them excel at getting there.
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