An Edifying Honors Collaboration

In this chapter, we describe how one honors collaborative was formed, how it functions, and how it continues to evolve. For members of this collaborative, it has been an extraordinary professional journey with edifying impacts as we have been instructed, improved, and enlightened by our involvement. Our collaborative emerged as a space to engage with colleagues across the nation with the common goal of better preparing honors students to tackle the grand challenges we face as a society (Appel et al., 2023). It comprises a network of honors leaders from 14 universities representing a variety of land-grant, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI), and public four-year institutions with membership in NCHC and/or CoHE; the institutions extend across nine dispersed and geographically diverse states. Because of our wide-ranging geography and institutional structures, we maintain an implicit focus on the role of honors education in community well-being and, by extension, a goal to prepare honors students to work collaboratively across multiple disciplines to understand and address the wicked problems confronting society. Members share a commitment to action to elicit powerful change. Our impact is amplified exponentially when individuals offer their time and talent because these diverse assets, especially when paired with familiarity established through regular contact, have created strong professional bonds and positive outcomes.