Harper College Honors Program: Meetings

Harper College Honors Program Meetings

Harper College Honors Society meetings are held each Wednesday in L323. Business begins at 3:45pm and discussion begins at approximately 4:00pm.

BUSINESS: Officers and Chairs of Honors provide updates with Unfinished Business and New Business and members vote on motions before the group.

DISCUSSION: The latter portion (4pm-5pm) of each meeting is reserved for an open forum on topics of interest. These discussions are open to everyone, not just members of Harper College Honors Society. L323 is located on the upper floor of Building L, across the hall from the Honors/PTK office.

Honors Society Meetings, Fall, 2011
When: 3:45 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., Wednesdays
Where: L-323

Wed., Aug. 31
Welcome back, or just welcome!

Wed., Sept. 7
Elections for Honors Society officer positions.

(Sat., Sept. 10)
Inspiration Café in Chicago (we can take a max of four Honors Program students); participants will be stuck with Mr. Wilson from about 3:40 p.m. until about 8:00 p.m.

Wed., Sept. 14
Topic: America’s economy. Are we headed for a double-dip recession? Guest: Professor Mark Healy, from Harper’s Economics Department.

Wed., Sept. 21
Topic: Alienation on a crowded planet. Guest: Professor Judi Nitsch.

(Sun., Sept. 25)
Cultural outing to the Holocaust Museum to see “The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese Internment Camps, 1942 – 1946.” (Participants would not be required to see the Gaman exhibit; if folks would prefer to stick to the main or permanent exhibitions in the museum, it’s fine, of course.)

Wed., Sept. 28
Topic: America’s Tea Party and the changing nature of the two-party system. Guest: Professor Bobby Summers, from Harper’s Political Science Department.

Wed., Oct. 5
Dr. Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American activist and internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, will visit us on Wed., Oct. 5. Dr. Aslan is also speaking to the entire campus later in the evening, 7:30 p.m. in the Performing Arts Center. This is an internationally acclaimed thinker and writer, and we are quite lucky to have him for an hour in L-323 on Oct. 5.

Wed., Oct. 12
Topic: Is God dead? Guest: Professor Kurt Hemmer, from Harper’s English Department. Challenging a few of our most basic pre-conceptions, the fantastic, always-lively Professor Hemmer will give us an intro to existentialist thought.

Wed., Oct. 19
Topic: Mythbusting, with Professor Josh Sunderbruch,
fromHarper’s English Department. Professor Sunderbruch will lead a discussion/debate on certain popular contemporary myths: crop circles, for example, and examples of pseudo-science (as opposed to more genuine science). Professor Sunderbruch is a regular and altogether fantastic host in our Honors Society meetings.

Wed., Oct. 26
On this day, we will visited by a panel of about four persons who are, in one way or another, dealing with disabilities, either physical or cognitive or both. This will be our “Disability Panel,” and chiefly we will simply hear folks out, hear the stories of their challenges as they attempt to navigate higher education and, of course, the world that lies beyond college. We may gently touch upon the ongoing debate over whether mainstreaming students with disabilities is always and everywhere a good thing.

Wed., Nov. 2
We actually have two (slightly related?) topics on this day. First, from 3:45 sharp until 4:15, we’ll be visited by PurpuraPlastika, a Mexican non-profit foundation that reaches out to underprivileged groups to raise self-esteem through artistic development. (They’re very unique art therapists, basically.) Then, from 4:15 sharp until 5:00 or just after, we will discuss immigration, the Dream Act, and where the U.S. is headed with respect to its undocumented residents. Our guest host for the latter portion of Nov. 2 will be Mary O’Leary, an immigration lawyer based in Evanston, Illinois . . . and a wonderfully informed, plain-spoken resource on the intensely provocative issues of border patrol, amnesty, citizenship for undocumented persons, and more. It should be a truly great meeting.

Wed., Nov. 9
Professor Tony Porter, from Harper’s Music Department, will join us on Wed., Nov. 2 to play his cello – in fact, to play very very beautifully, as you will see and hear. Professor Porter may also speak a little (in between pieces) about music, what music “means,” what it means to master a difficult and remarkable instrument like the cello, and more.

(Sat., Nov. 12)
Inspiration Café in Chicago (we can take a max of four Honors Program students); participants will be stuck with Mr. Wilson from about 3:40 p.m. until about 8:00 p.m.

Wed., Nov. 16
We'll be visited by Harper Pride, the college's club to support and raise awareness for gay, lesbian, and transgender students. As I write this, I'm not 100% sure what we'll discuss, exactly. Most likely our visitors will share a few of their personal stories, and we'll simply discuss/debate the issues of homosexuality, the legalization of gay/lesbian marriage, the repeal of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell," among other things. The Nov. 16 meeting is part of our attempt to be increasingly interactive with Harper's other clubs and organizations.

Wed., Nov. 23
TBA

Wed., Nov. 30
Philosophical puzzles and paradoxes, plus pizza (or “ppp, + p”); guest: Professor John Garcia. (He’s always our honored guest, but this time Dr. Garcia is our featured guest.) Professor Garcia will help us explore two important puzzles/paradoxes: first, the puzzle of identity, which asks a simple question. If everything about person X changes over his/her lifetime, does that mean that X is a different (new) person than the person he/she was ten years prior, five years prior, one hour prior? And does that mean, moreover, that person X in the present day cannot be accountable for what he/she did years before? Next is the truly important paradox of freedom. As Prof. Garcia will demonstrate, freedom might seem attractive as an idea, but, deep down, do we really want it? Is it possible to argue that there’s very little love for freedom in contemporary American society? (And yes, there will be pizza.)

Wed., Dec. 7
Food and fun!

MEETINGS ARCHIVE