Greetings, Honors Friends!
On behalf of your Western Regional Honors Council (WRHC) executive team, thank you for your interest and engagement in honors education. Our region includes honors colleges and programs from 13 western states; our membership is comprised of community colleges, regional institutions, private liberal arts colleges, public flagship and land grant institutions, technical schools, and the United States Airforce Academy. Some of our member colleges and programs have enrollments of thousands of honors students and have decades-long histories, while others are represent a few dozen students and are just beginning the work of honors at their institutions. Wherever you fall in that mix, you are welcome, your voice matters, and you have distinctive contributions to make to the important work of our organization.
This spirit of inclusiveness is core to who we are as honors educators in the west. Two other common themes are especially resonant across WRHC. First is a spirit of generous collaboration; we share our new ideas and best practices, along with our challenges and barriers to success – all with a commitment to leveraging our collective wisdom in hopes of learning, growing, and maximizing our positive impacts on the world. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we are a student-centered collective. It’s because of our commitment to better serving this talented, motivated, diverse and dynamic community that we exist and do the work. I’m especially pleased that this year, we have welcome two student members to our board. Serving in these roles are the extraordinary Anna Abeyta from the University of New Mexico and Sarah Hibbard from the University of Montana.
Central to our work is sponsoring a regional conference each spring. Having come off wonderful meetings in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Missoula, Montana, we are thrilled to be gathering in Long Beach, California, March 28-29, 2024. Recent conferences have welcomed some 300 students, faculty, and staff for exciting agendas packed with research presentations, speakers, roundtables, workshops, and fun opportunities for building professional networks and friendships. Details for this year’s program can be found on the conference website. I hope you’ll be able to join us! Future conferences are on the books for Denver and Las Vegas.
Scribendi, headquartered at the University of New Mexico’s honors program, is WRHC’s award-winning arts and literary magazine and features exemplary student creative work from across the region. With submissions due in the fall, each year’s edition is unveiled at our annual spring conference. WRHC also sponsors a limited number of travel grants for students and faculty. Watch for special communication on these and other opportunities throughout the year.
I’ll close with an invitation for each of you to engage honors at the regional level. Taking advantage of the opportunities offered through WRHC will make your honors experience bigger and richer. For me, WRHC has been a source of opportunities, inspiration, friendship and fun. I know it can be the same for you. Please don’t hesitate to contact me any of my awesome colleagues on the WRHC Executive Board if you have questions or if there ways in which we might support your work.
In the meantime, I hope to see you many of you at our meeting in conjunction with the National Collegiate Honors Council in November (we’ll also have a table at the Engaged Breakfast), and in Long Beach, for our conference next March. California: here we come!
Til then, and always, be honorable!
Tim
Dr. Timothy Nichols
Montana State University Honors College
WRHC President, 2023-2024
Western Regional Honors Council 