Theme and Star Lectures
The Honors College theme for the 2024-2025 year is "Centering Wellness". Throughout the year, many of our programs, including the Star Lecture Series, will address this theme. We invite you to join us to explore the various ways you can introduce wellness into your life.
Take some time to take a journey through this site to discover the many opportunities to learn and to get involved.
Learn
The Star Lecture Series invites faculty and staff and other speakers representing different disciplines and experiences to address a common topic or theme – the theme for the year -- in six lectures across a single academic year. The Star Lecture Series includes three lectures in the fall semester and three in the winter semester. To satisfy the Star Lecture requirement for University Honors or Transfer Honors, students must attend at least three of the six Star Lectures presented during a single academic year (not calendar year) and submit a reflection paper about the lectures to The Honors College. Although this is only a requirement for these two pathways, we encourage all students from around campus to attend these interactive, exciting lectures. Star Lectures are LBC-approved.
Fall 2024 Star Lecture Series
Building Communities of Caring
Dr. Ron Flowers, Department of Leadership and Counseling, College of Education
September 25, 2024, 6:30-8:00pm
Sill 124 or join via Zoom
By nearly every metric, student mental health is worsening. With all the opportunities college life presents, it also comes with challenges—academic pressures, social adjustments, and sometimes, feelings of isolation or uncertainty. This is why building a community of caring on campus is not just important—it’s essential. A community where each person feels supported, respected, and connected can transform a student’s college experience. It can turn a place of learning into a place of belonging, where we not only grow academically but also thrive emotionally and socially. When we prioritize caring for one another, we lay the foundation for a stronger, more resilient campus where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. So how do we create communities of caring? The EMU Honors College invites you to attend this lecture to hear Dr. Ron Flowers discuss the components of communities of caring and more!
Joy!
Dr. Ryan Gildersleeve, Dean, College of Education
Dr. Jessica Swan, Teacher Education, College of Education
October 22, 2024, 6:30-8:00pm
Sill 124 or join via Zoom
Joy - elusive, evasive, or erratic? Joy - sound, stable, sacred? Joy - evocative, emergent, or
existential? Joy, what is it? How does it manifest? Why does it matter? In this STAR Lecture, we
set out to map different offerings of joy and its relations to wellness, success, and learning. We
share about ways that joy is being put to work in the College of Education and in our own
professional lives in order to excavate a joyful university.
Talking About Trauma in the College Classroom
Dr. Devika Dibya Choudhuri, Department of Leadership and Counseling, College of Education
November 20, 2024, 6:30-8:00pm
Sill 124 or join via Zoom
Winter 2025 Star Lecture Series
Money: What You Should Know
James Tatum III '14, Director of Financial Planning and Analysis, Wayne County Department of Management and Budget
January 16, 2025, 6:30-8:00pm
“Why don't they teach us about finances and budgeting in school?” is the common refrain when the subject of money comes up. For one, our public school system is already overburdened with teaching the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Second, research shows people tend to forget lessons about personal finance almost as soon as they learn them – unless they can apply those lessons soon. Schoolchildren neither negotiate salaries nor apply for mortgages. But college students will soon engage in those activities – and more.
The EMU Honors College invites you to attend this lecture by James Tatum III (EMU ’14). Attendees will learn what they need to know about money -- when they need to know it.
Enlighten U: Self-Care for College Students
Dr. Lolita Cummings, Department of English, Language, and Literature, College of Arts and Sciences
Melissa Thrasher, Executive Director of Media Relations & Social Media
February 19, 2025, 6:30-8:00pm
Sill 124 or join via Zoom.
At its best, the college experience is an exciting time filled with intellectual stimulation, social-emotional learning, and self-exploration. Yet college is often a difficult period for students, due to countless pressures and stressors.
“Enlighten U” is an EMU-produced video podcast created to help students navigate college life and cope with its many challenges, with particular emphasis on mental health issues. Episodes have focused on self-care for college students, excessive social media use, navigating food insecurity, unraveling ADHD, student burnout, financial struggles, and more.
The EMU Honors College invites you to attend a highly interactive Star Lecture with the creators and hosts of “Enlighten U” – Lolita Cummings, professor of public relations, and Melissa Thrasher, executive director of media relations and social media. They will be joined on stage by Dr. Aesha Mustafa, an assistant professor of leadership and counseling and a mental health expert. Students are encouraged to email questions about the production of “Enlighten U” and mental health ahead of time to the Honors College at [email protected].
Physical Activity and Mental Health in College Students
Dr. Catherine Gammon, School of Health Promotion & Human Performance, College of Health and Human Services
March 18, 2025, 6:30-8:00pm
Sill 124 or join via Zoom.
Regular exercise has long been known to confer physical health benefits and reduce the risk of developing chronic diseases. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the benefits of physical activity for mental health and wellbeing. Research studies report immediate and long-term improvements in mental health as a result of physical activity. College students have high rates of mental health challenges. Thus, identifying ways to support their mental health has become a matter of urgency. Physical activity is a low-cost, accessible strategy with minimal negative side effects that college students can use to support their mental health as they complete their degree.
The EMU Honors College invites you to attend this lecture to hear Dr. Catherine Gammon, associate professor of exercise science, discuss the relationship between physical activity and mental health in college students.
The Star Lecture Reflection Essay should always include:
- Specific and accurate information from each of the three separate lectures the student attended:
Who were the speakers? Where were they from? What were their areas of expertise? What were the
topics of the lectures and how did they connect to the theme for the year? - Some critical and reflective analysis demonstrating thoughtful engagement:
- What were the key take-aways? How did the lectures relate to the students’ experiences or goals?
- How did they reinforce or reframe what you are learning in college? How did they offer new
understandings about the theme for the year.
Students are encouraged to make notes in response to the above points following each lecture, so they can easily produce a paper of 2-2.5 typed, double-spaced pages that addresses all three lectures. The writing should also be polished and free of errors.
SCORING RUBRIC: (1-5 pts)
To receive Star Lecture Series credit for University Honors, students must receive a minimum of 3
pts. for the Star Lecture paper. Essays that have significant grammatical, syntactical, or structural
errors will be returned without scoring for revision and resubmission.
- Essay includes specific, detailed, and accurate information about each of 3 separate Star Lecture
events within a single academic year—1 pt. - Essay draws connections between the lectures and the year’s theme—1 pt.
- Essay draws connections between the lectures and the student’s own thinking, experiences,
program of study—1 pt. - Essay is at least 2 pages—1 pt.
- Essay is interesting and compelling–1 pt.
Star Lecture Papers should be submitted as a PDF attachment to the Honors College email address:
[email protected]. Honors students are strongly encouraged to submit their Star Lecture paper to The Honors College within 60 calendar days following the end of the academic year in which they attend the three Star Lectures and may do so as soon as they have attended three lectures. Writing the reflection paper as soon as the three lectures are completed ensures that the material is fresh in the student’s mind and they can meaningfully make connections between the lectures.
Read
Each year, to kick off our focus on the Honors College theme,Honors students reads the same book and begins the year with a discussion of the book and the theme. This year, the Honors Common Read is Somehow: Thoughts on Love by Anne Lamott. The book is readily available through local public libraries, Amazon, and other bookstores.
In Somehow:Thoughts on Love, Anne Lamott explores the transformative power that love has in our how it surprises us, forces us to confront uncomfortable truths, reminds us of our humanity, and guides us forward. “Love just won't be pinned down,” she says. “It is in our very atmosphere” and lies at the heart of who we are. We are, Lamott says, creatures of love.
Lamott refracts all the colors of the spectrum. She explores the unexpected love for a partner later in life. The bruised (and bruising) love for a child who disappoints, even frightens. The lessons she underscores are that love enlightens as it educates, comforts as it energizes, sustains as it surprises.
We selected this book to work in concert with our theme for the 2024-25 academic year: Centering Wellness. Many of our Honors College programs throughout the year, including the Star Lectures, will address this theme and invite you to consider ways that wellness, whether physical, mental, spiritual, or another form of wellness, can impact your everyday life. Throughout the year, we will invite you to engage in conversations centering wellness with your Honors peers.
At the beginning of the fall semester, we invite students to join us for a book debrief, where we discuss how the book relates to the theme, relates to their personal journey, and engage in community.