be part of an optional intensive experience in the liberal arts
Colby-Sawyer's Wesson Honors Program creates academic, cultural and social opportunities for highly motivated and capable students. Acceptance into the Honors Program is based on demonstrated academic motivation and a minimum high school GPA of 3.5 and 1150 SAT. Continued membership is based on the member remaining on the Dean's List. To help students reach their potential as honors scholars, the program aims to:
Provide access to the highest quality academic learning experiences
Identify and recognize outstanding intellectual inquiry
Develop each student's leadership in the immediate and extended community
Foster and create intellectual exchange between students, faculty and students, and the college community as a whole
what wesson honors program students are doing
In 2005, Wesson Honors Program student Tim Bradley inaugurated the honorificabilitudinitatibus newsletters and several public service announcements, to showcase the various activities of the program. To read or listen to any of these, click on the following links.
To read the newsletters, you will need Adobe Reader to open the files. Click here to download a free version of Adobe Reader.
To listen to the public service announcements, you will need RealOne Player to open the files. Click here to download a free version of RealOne Player.
- Wesson Honors Program Weekend
- Wesson Honors Program, PSA 1
- Wesson Honors Program, PSA 2
- Wesson Honors Program, PSA 3
a sample of course offerings
Society and Disease
This course seeks to investigate and reveal to the student the complex, and sometimes surprising, relationship between contagious disease and society. While discussion of specific microbes is an integral part of this course, it is not the primary focus. Truly interdisciplinary in nature, students will be asked to reflect on the effect of disease on issues such as social reform, art and literature, popular culture, scientific inquiry, government, the public health movement, natural selection, and the environment.
Students will research and present a project on a self-selected topic emphasizing the interaction of contagious disease and society. This project could take one of many different forms including, but not limited to, a thesis paper, a video presentation, an original play, or a work of art. The common requirement would be in the area of background study.
The Works of Shakespeare: Analysis and Performance
Written to be performed on stage in front of an audience, William Shakespeare's plays were intended to entertain, inform, and inspire through the telling of a story. In this class, Shakespeare's works will be read, analyzed, and consumed, always with the thought of performance in mind.
How Shakespeare composed the words of his sonnets and the dialogue of his plays will be examined, not only as stimulating works of art and a form of communication with an audience, but also as stage directions to his actors.
Many Mansions: Religion In the Americas
From Spanish efforts to recreate Medieval Christendom and the Puritan dream of a “city upon a hill†through Mormonism and the Shakers to the Heaven's Fate community, the Americas have served as a laboratory for religious experimentation. This honors course is an interdisciplinary exploration of the varieties of religious experience throughout the American continents.
Drawing on the Social Sciences and the Humanities, we will begin with the religions of the Native peoples who lived here before the Europeans arrived and then examine some of the multitude of religious brought to the Americas of created here by European, African, and Asian peoples and their descendants.
We will consider such questions as: “What makes American religiosity distinctive?†“Why have the Americas seemed to encourage religious experimentation?†“What is the difference, if any, between 'religions' and 'cults'?†Students will have the opportunity to help determine which religious traditions we study.
The Science of Science Fiction
Science fiction shows us worlds beyond the imagination. They are so different from our own that they broaden our ideas on what is possible and give us new perspective on our own world. We will read science fiction stories and view movies that present us with situations that seem impossible and determine whether they are possible from a scientific perspective.
We will do this by studying the scientific principles that produce these unimaginable worlds. Students will explore space travel, time travel, possible directions of evolution, probability, new ways of communication, diseases, and other ideas. We will read books and short stories by Douglas Adams, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula LeGuin, and others and view several movies.
Understanding the Arts
Have you ever gone to an art exhibition and felt lost because you weren't sure you knew how to appreciate art? Have you visited a city where there was a great museum and you didn't go because you felt intimidated and unsure? Would you like to develop an all-around understanding of the arts as a foundation for lie-long enjoyment?
For students who enjoy the arts and want to deepen their appreciation, this symposium-style course offers an easy-to-understand method of critical analysis. It gives you access to the fine arts and lets you learn more about art as you enjoy the experience. This method can be extended to music, theatre, dance and film, all of which will be included in the scope of the course.
Students will attend arts events of all kinds and write critical papers about their experiences. They will share their writings and opinions with others and learn how to arrive at intelligent and informed judgments about the arts.
to find out more
For more information contact Ann Page Stecker, Coordinator, Wesson Honors Program, telephone 603-526-3644.
