Editor,
I am writing in response to Anurag Gupta's letter from Monday, titled, Honors dorms defeat learning principles.
Unlike Gupta, I find the existence of an honors dormitory to be profoundly satisfying. I live in Hoover House, the dorm to which Honors Tutorial College students are given preference. While not strictly an honors dorm, it has a marked honors focus.
In Hoover, HTC students live together with non-HTC students. While we have different course loads, and, sometimes, different study habits, we do not close our minds to each other. Instead, we learn from each other in a number of different respects. We may be separated by selection factors
or simply by educational choice, but we still often select each other as friends and confidants.
Even in dorms populated solely by honors students, the minds of those students are not isolated from minds throughout the rest of the university. Gupta is certainly right in saying that we risk becoming muted and deaf if we deny ourselves to others. It is as if we are striving to maintain only one discussion that which we keep with ourselves. This may go on in honors dorms, but this is in no way an indication of honors students denying themselves to others. Honors students, like other students, participate in academic programs and student organizations.
Sure, I enjoy my discussions with my HTC colleagues. We have chosen programs different from most, if not all, other programs at the university. We can support each other in ways that other students in other programs cannot. But those other students still are valuable parts of our lives. One of my closest friends this year is someone whom I used to live in Hoover with, who is not an honors student.
Knowledge flows between honors students and non-honors students all the time - even if that flow pauses at the doors of an honors dorm. Honors dorms celebrate learning principles, not defeat them.
Jen Herrick
jennifer.herrick@ohiou.edu
17
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