Honors Orientation and City as Text™

Honors Orientation and City as Text™

Incoming Honors scholars in Fall 2024, and new Track B students, will participate in the signature experience of HONR 101: Honors City as Text™. Adapted from a national pedagogy trademarked by the National Collegiate Honors Council, the opportunity will offer you the chance to get to know our area more richly and to grow familiar with your cohort of Honors scholars. All iterations of City as Text™ center on an expedition to a designated area in which participants are encouraged to explore and critically reflect on a location as one interprets or reflects on a text. In this Honors course, you will be trained by campus experts on basic fieldwork techniques and the ethics of observation and interaction in a new environment. Small groups of new UMW honors scholars, along with one or two upperclass leaders, will visit an assigned part of the Fredericksburg area for a multi-hour exploration a few weeks into the semester. City as Text™ culminates in group presentations through which new scholars share their observations with UMW faculty and administrators and with various Fredericksburg leaders and community partners.

HONR 101: Honors City as Text™ is mandatory and will consist of a pre-semester orientation program and an eight-week, one-credit course in the Fall 2024 semester. Students should plan to be on campus August 18-20 for the beginning of the program; residential students will be given early access to their dorm rooms. HONR 101 will continue one hour per week for the first half of the semester. Incoming Honors students in the Fall semester will be automatically enrolled in HONR 101; first-year students admitted to the Honors Program through the spring Track B process will complete HONR 101 the following Fall semester. 

Questions?

If you have any questions , please contact honorsprogram@umw.edu.