Spring 2021 Alumni Newsletter

Combs Honors Scholars Launched to Build Community

Michael W. Combs, who died in 2019, was a beloved professor of political science, colleague and community member. Now, Huskers will continue to know his legacy through a student organization named in his honor.

The Dr. Michael W. Combs Honors Scholars is a new student organization, under the leadership of Honors Program students and staff, that seeks to build a community for students of color, offering leadership, networking and mentoring opportunities.

“We wanted to use ‘scholars’ in the organization’s name, because that’s the term Dr. Combs would use for his students, indicating their present and potential,” said Shannon Mangram, Coordinator for Community Engagement, Retention, and Recruitment in the Honors Program and co-adviser to the organization. “The name is fitting because of the way he interacted with his students, the way he expected excellence and the way he reminded scholars to expect that same excellence of themselves. That’s what we want to do for students through this organization.”

The idea for an organization that focused on high-achieving underrepresented students came about in the spring, when a handful of Nebraska Honors students wanted to make positive change on campus for their peers.

“It was a good intersection of initiatives in that the Honors Program was working to add more support structures for underrepresented students,” Mangram said. “And around that same time, we had students approach us with concerns about communities for students of color.”

Honors students Daniela Chavez and Dulce Garcia set to work getting the organization up and running, and Mangram and Jordan Soliz, professor of communication studies, and Honors Program Faculty Fellow, volunteered to serve as advisers. Chavez and her fellow executive council members spent last summer solidifying a plan, writing the organization’s mission statements and constitution, and submitting the proposal to the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska for approval.

Chavez hopes the Combs Honors Scholars will build out a community of engaged students and provide important support and resources as they progress through their college careers.

For more information about the Combs Honors Scholars, click here. Learn more about what Nebraska Honors is doing to foster inclusive excellence here.

Seminar Tracks History of Sitcoms, Social Change

The situational comedy — the not-so-humble sitcom — has long acted as a bullhorn for social mores and a pop-cultural measuring stick for social movements.

Nebraska’s Tamy Burnett, assistant director of the Honors Program, instructor in women’s and gender studies, and courtesy faculty in English, had been looking for a chance to explore the social significance of sitcoms in the classroom. While teaching a previous course on “quality TV” — mostly hour-long dramas that have attracted the sort of critical analysis that usually rebuffs the sitcom — Burnett realized that Honors students were plenty intrigued by the idea, too.

The coronavirus-altered academic calendar closed the fall semester in late November, cracking a brisk December window for mini-courses that could help students catch up, get ahead or just explore some interests. So Burnett decided to pack 70 years of socially conscious sitcoms into a three-week, 3-credit cours.

As part of the 300-level Honors course, Burnett’s 18 students remotely watched and discussed episodes from dozens of sitcoms. They examined gender norms through the lenses of “I Love Lucy,” “Who’s the Boss?” and “Murphy Brown.” They explored the mainstream evolution of Black identity via “Good Times,” “Family Matters” and “Black-ish.” They considering LGBTQA+ issues as portrayed by “Will & Grace” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” Changing views on socioeconomic status, family structure, disability, age, political affiliation and other issues also get their due.

“There is a preponderance of sitcoms, from the early ’50s to now, that engage with changing social norms. And I think it’s because humor is an accessible way for a lot of people to engage with these topics and for an audience to entertain commentary on social change,” said Burnett. “Humor allows us to talk about things that we might not otherwise be comfortable talking about — and can open the door for people to be willing to entertain ideas or perspectives that were not immediately ones that they had thought of.”

E.N. Thompson Forum Provides New Opportunities for Students

My name is Dulce Garcia, and I'm a sophomore Advertising & Public Relations and Journalism double major in the Honors Program. This past year, I was lucky to serve as the intern for the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. Over the past three decades, the E.N. Thompson Forum has established itself as one of the preeminent lecture series on topics of global importance, and last year the University Honors Program took on increased responsibility for coordinating the Forum. Much like everything in 2020, the Forum had to rethink how to structure a lecture series to work within the limitations the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated, which made for a unique year.

The theme of this year’s forum was Regeneration: Leadership and Hope for a Changing Planet, with an emphasis on climate change, youth activism, and leadership in an ever changing world. We wanted our speaker lineup to reflect those goals, and we selected speakers who ranged in age, experience, and background. Our lineup included: author, activist, and clinical psychologist Mary Pipher, presidential historian and Pulitzer-Prize winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin, indigenous climate activist and hip-hop artist Xiutezcal Martinez, polar explorer, climate, advocate and philanthropist Ann Bancroft. For the first time ever in the Forum’s history, we also created and hosted a Forum Youth Panel titled “Naming the Beast: Climate Change and Our Youth Taking Action.” We gathered local activists to come together in a guided panel discussion by former Sustain UNL president Brittni McGuire. We hope hosting the Forum Youth Panel will become a yearly tradition to introduce a younger audience to the lecture series.

Another great change that came to the Forum this year was the introduction of the E.N. Thompson Student Subcommittee, which I chaired. The goal of the student committee was to specifically emphasize youth activism and encourage student engagement and involvement. The committee helped the Forum in selecting speakers, writing press releases, creating student events, social media, and most notably creating the E.N. Thompson Forum Sustainability Idea Award, to align with the year's selected theme. We partnered with the Honors Program, the Office of Sustainability, and the Arbor Day Foundation to award four UNL RSOs with $500 for developing a sustainability idea that aligns with the University's Sustainability and Resilience master plan. The four winning ideas will be incorporated campus wide with the help of the Office of Sustainability.

Despite the hardships the pandemic handed us, the Forum managed to maintain its status as a staple of the UNL community and introduce itself to new audiences. With our newly selected theme for 2021-2022, Race in the Global Context, we look forward to continuing this mission in the year ahead.

Honors Course Helps First Year Students Explore ‘Science of You’

This spring, for the first time, all first year Honors students enrolled in a once-a-week interdisciplinary seminar, The Science of You, delving into some of the many facets that shape a person. Topics ranged from nutrition and geography to social media. More than 500 students took the class across 18 sections — 14 in-person, four online — taught by seven different instructors.

“This class gave students the space to reflect critically on the forces that have shaped them into the people they are today, from food to family to identity, privilege, belief and more,” said Jacob Schlange, Assistant Director of Experiential Learning and Global Initiatives for the Honors Program.

The goals of the course are to teach interdisciplinary thinking and systems thinking, as well as to encourage empathy and understanding while building camaraderie among the Honors student cohort.

“We were trying to meet those needs for our students with the curriculum and to provide them with a holistic learning experience,” said Patrice McMahon, Director of the Honors Program. “As a staff, we got together and invited a broad range of faculty to help us think through what a class like this would entail. This is a class that we think helps students put together the pieces of their own life as a way to help them launch their careers at UNL — their academics, and also their intellectual and personal careers.”

In class, students are regularly put into small groups to have lively discussions about their own experiences and how those experiences have shaped them and their classmates. For a final project, students develop their own module on a topic not covered in the course.

Scaling up the class to serve more than 500 students wouldn’t be possible without the 20 Honors student leaders serving as undergraduate learning assistants, all of whom either took a pilot version of the course last year or have served as peer mentors for the Honors Program. Learning assistants helped facilitate conversations, and each got to lead their own full module, providing a developmental opportunity for them.

With fewer opportunities for socializing outside the classroom due to pandemic restrictions, the course also served another important function.

“Most first-year Honors students live in Knoll Hall, but a lot of them haven’t met very many people beyond their roommates or the rest of the floor, because of social-distancing guidelines,” said Schlange. “This course provided an opportunity for them to expand their Honors community.”

Grant Helps Students Lead Afterschool, Summer Experiences

The University Honors Program, Student Affairs and Nebraska Extension have launched a new opportunity for students to gain valuable career experience while giving back to youth across the state.

This summer, Honors students will take part in the new Huskers After-School and Summer Learning Opportunities program, in which participants will lead children in grades K-12 in after-school clubs and summer activities.

“This program was designed to give UNL students the opportunity to contribute to Nebraska’s recovery from the pandemic – specifically, to help young people whose learning has been interrupted by school closures,” said Jeff Cole, network lead for Beyond School Bells, Nebraska’s statewide afterschool network which is partnering with the university for the initiative.

“Research tells us that after-school and summer learning experiences can have a profound effect on a young person’s development, and we believe UNL students can be just the type of mentors and club facilitators we need to help renew and accelerate learning and growth in the year ahead.”

Honors students have led after-school clubs in Lincoln schools for several years now. The new expansion was made possible through CARES Act funds provided to the university.

“I am so excited to see our after-school programs grow this summer,” said Patrice McMahon, Director of the Honors Program. “For students, watching these children learn and grow is often the highlight of their week. They come away feeling not only fulfilled, but also prepared with new skills they didn’t have before.”

For more information on the program, visit the HASLO website.