Honors students and faculty volunteered at the AEA 11 Junior High Knowledge Bowl at Merle Hay Mall on April 11. Pictured above (Back row, left to right): Abdul Mohammed, Stacy Amling, Carl De Vries, Josh Stevens, Julie Roosa and Jan La Ville (front row) Sarah Waddle, Xue Hu, and Philip Porter.
By Kodie Butterfield
Staff Writer
The DMACC Honors Program will complete its first academic year this May. The program offers students the chance to explore their classes on a deeper level, the opportunity to attend an array of events and to visit four-year universities.
This semester the DMACC Honors Program has visited colleges such as Grinnell College and Iowa State University. They volunteered at the Junior High Knowledge Bowl at Merle Hay Mall in Urbandale and visited Joplin, Missouri, earlier this semester to help rebuild houses that were destroyed by the tornados in 2011.
Jan LaVille, director of the DMACC Honors Program, explained that the students are required to complete an Honors project by the end of each semester for classes they want to get Honors credit for. The students are required to get at least a B on their final project.
Students make the decision about the project after meeting with their instructors at the beginning of the semester. They are then required to meet with their instructor throughout the semester to give updates on the status of the project.
Students this semester are doing an array from projects from writing a novella to discovering ways to increase lung capacity to creating a music video.
“The purpose is to take a subject area they are enrolled in and go beyond what everybody else in class is doing and for them to make it their own,” said LaVille.
Anthony Ames, DMACC Honors student, is currently working on two Honors Projects. One of his projects is to write a 100-page novel for his Encounters in Humanities course.
“I decided to write the novel because it is something I have wanted to do for about three years on and off. The novel is about the choices we make and the consequences they have,” said Ames.
This is Ames’ last semester at DMACC. He said he plans on transferring to a university. He is currently looking into Iowa State University and American University in Washington, D.C.
LaVille will be retiring from DMACC at the end of this semester. Starting this summer, Sarah Waddle will be taking over as the director of the DMACC Honors Program.
Waddle is currently serving as a professor of English on the West campus.
“My number one goal is to maintain the quality of the program and make sure it has the same rigor and value to the students,” said Waddle.
Waddle also wants to reach out to students and school districts that do not know about the Honors Program and all that it has to offer students. She said that she hopes to spend some time with schools in some of the service areas to expand what they know about the program and hopefully get more applications from those areas.
Waddle said that LaVille will help her in the next two months with training and the program in general.
Once she takes over as director of the DMACC Honors Program Waddle hopes to keep the program where it is but also extend on the processes that have been developed.
“My philosophy is that a strong Honors Program helps strengthen the institution in general. The students involved aren’t just Honors students; they are everyday students, the editors of papers, the theatre students and much more,” said Waddle.