“Road trip!” Those two words sum up one of the most renowned rites of college life. But for members of ETSU’s Honors College, the words are taking on a very different meaning in the weeks ahead.
Instead of beaches and ski slopes, they’ll be packing their bags for Fisk University in Nashville to attend the annual conference of the Tennessee Collegiate Honors Council. Eleven students from the Honors College will attend this year’s conference, along with Dean of the Honors College Dr. Rebecca Pyles and Honors College Curriculum and Program Coordinator Joe Rice.
The conference, from Feb. 17-18, is an opportunity for honors students around the state to present their research, as well as to network with other honors students and faculty, according to the TCHC’s web site.
The conference begins the evening of Feb. 17 with a cultural show and showcase of talents and will continue through Saturday afternoon with moderated sessions, lectures and research presentations.
The listing of sessions for the conference displays a wide variety of topics to be represented, including the blues, Hernando Cortes and the Aztec Empire, and plate tectonics.
None of the ETSU students in attendance will be presenting research this year, but Pyles said she hopes that the experience of attending the conference will inspire participation in next year’s event. “It’s a very stimulating environment,” Rice said.
Presenting research is important and very valuable to students, Rice said. “Certainly it will make them better candidates for graduate school, medical school and law school,” he said.
Karen Capps, a sophomore Honors Scholar who is also a pre-med student, is looking forward to the trip, she said. “I’m excited to see what other students are doing in research, to see what my peers are working on,” she said.
Seeing what other honors students are doing in research is also important to Chris Carver, an undecided freshman Honors Scholar. “I hope to learn more about my options in research and possibly get an idea of what I could present at a future conference,” he said.
For the ETSU Honors College, which is only six months old, the conference will also be a type of debut, and the first chance for many students from other honors programs and colleges in Tennessee to interact on a personal level with ETSU Honors College students and faculty, Pyles said.
Pyles anticipates that she will be answering a lot of questions about the new Honors College. “Our sister TBR institutions are quite curious as to what we’re doing,” she said.
The conference will be a good opportunity, Pyles said, for Honors College students to represent their school and the college by interacting and learning about other programs in Tennessee. “I’m hoping that they will be ambassadors for us,” Pyles said. “And I expect them to be totally honest about the program. If we do have warts, we need to know what they are.”
For Pyles, the TCHC conference is another way of improving an Honors College that she said has “the potential to be a tremendous positive impact to ETSU.”
And although attending the conference will mean a lot of driving for Pyles and Rice, who will each be at the wheel of a van full of students, the opportunity to interact with other schools, as well as with their own students, is well worth the mileage, they said.
“I’ve had way too much experience driving ETSU students,” said Rice, laughing, “but it’s always fun.

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