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Honors Birthday
Honors 45th Birthday Celebration!!
In 2009 the Honors Program celebrated 45 years of enriching student's education at Utah State University. To commemorate this wonderful achievement we held a birthday celebration in late November. Honors Students and Faculty gathered at the Merrill-Cazier Library for delicious food and, of course, birthday cake!
Kaitlin Neville Julander, Honors Alumna 2008 in University Studies and Honors in Civil Engineering, returned to speak about her Honors experience. If you missed it, or would like to read Kaitlin's speech again, click here.
Also to commemorate our 45th Birthday, the Honors Program dug into the history books to show students and faculty some of the highlights of Honors over its 45 year lifetime.
Honors Highlights
In 1962, a committee established to determine the feasability of an Honors Program at Utah State University determined that "justice requires of the university not that it treat all of its students identically, but that it provide an equal opportunity for each student to live a personally enriched and a socially useful life; and that an Honors Program for exceptional students...enables the university to implement this principle."
- 1964 - Honors Program established and administered by an Honors Committee. Stanley Cazier is acting Honors Program Director
- 1968 - The "Honors Center" in room 349 of the Merrill Library opens
- 1969 - The Honors Office moves from the Zoology Dept. to 351 of the Merrill Library
- 1971 - First Honors graduating class
- 1971 - "Honors" becomes a designation for Honors Program graduates only
- 1971 - Raymond T. Sanders appointed Honors Program Director
- 1974 - Douglas D. Alder appointed Honors Program Director
- 1975 - Undergraduate Research and Creative Opportunity Grants instituted under the auspices of the Honors Program
- 1975 - In Print, Honors student journal, launched
- 1976 - The "Last Lecture" established and fully organized and selected by Honors Students.
- 1986 - Joe Morse appointed Honors Program Director
- 1986 - Student Showcase launched
- 1987 - Departmental Honors instituted
- 1988 - Honors Professor inaugurated to acknowledge those professors "selected for their knowledge and skills as outstanding teachers to teach a special topics course for the USU Honors Program"
- 1989 - Honors Faculty Award founded to acknowledge outstanding service to Honors by a faculty member over a number of years. 10 professors are recognized in the first year.
- 1991 - Honors Student Council receives Robins Award for Organization of the Year
- 1993 - Dan McInerney appointed Honors Program Director
- 1993 - USU hosts Western Regional Honors Conference
- 1998 - David Lancy appointed Honors Program Director
- 2000 - Joe and Karen Morse Scholarship instituted
- 2004 - Helen B. Cannon Award established
- 2004 - Honors housing opened as a FIG: Freshmen Interest Group
- 2005 - Christie Fox appointed Honors Program Director
- 2005 - Honors moves from Merrill Library to Old Main 015
- 2005 - Honors graduate designation added to diplomas
- 2006 - Joyce Kinkead Honors Study Room unveiled in Merrill-Cazier Library
- 2006 - Honors House established
- 2007 - Lawrence O. Cannon Award instituted
This history is incomplete. Help us finish it! If you know of milestones, events, or names that we've left out, please let us know so that we can create a complete history by our 50th anniversary in 2014.
For a photographic history of the Honors Program from the 1989-2009, click here!