Pictured (from left): Skylar Hodson, Remington Covey, Monse Rivero, Vanessajane Bayna, Alison Majors, and Avery Woods
By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
At one station, a perfectly groomed and uniformed senior from the Air Force Academy in Colorado explained his theory of how drones could be used to detect the status of unexploded ordnance by an airfield. At another, a very fluent young woman from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio pointed to a boldly colored poster that defended the theories of Gloria Anzaldua. Into this mix, of the National Collegiate Honors Council’s yearly meeting, six NTCC students presented their scholarly work this past 1 November in Kansas City.
Again, the number of community college presenters in this conference, dominated by university upperclassmen, was minimal. But NTCC maintained its tradition upheld since 2008 of having students who qualified to present. Getting in is difficult for many community college honors scholars as a student must develop a project in their first semester, send a promising abstract off in their second, and present in their second year.
For the tenth year, NTCC also claimed one of the conference’s fifty general sessions. The development of niche cinema projects in Texas history, and the ability of NTCC to gain state recognition for these projects have helped win places in this second main forum—besides the poster presentations. This year, the NTCC group had a particularly strong foursome of scholars with extensive film experience, able to represent the scholarship, acting, cinematography, and leadership utilized in the film endeavors. Russell-Mowery Scholar, Skylar Hodson is the director of the current film effort on oil and Texas politics, and she was a former star of the Texas suffragette film. Texas Heritage National Bank Scholar, Vanessajane Bayna, represented the foundation of scholarship she created for the film on oil and politics. NTCC’s Dr. Jerry Wesson Scholar, Monse Rivero was a student director of the traveling preacher film, and NTCC’s James and Elizabeth Whatley Scholar, Alison Majors, an actress of the recent film—appearing as Lady Bird Johnson.
For the third time, the NTCC contingent featured a newly named, Dr. and Mrs. Bradly Witt Scholar who received support from a generous contribution made by the Witt-Wootten family in 2022. This scholarship is a special token of the unique support that the community here has conferred to its NCHC presenters since the days of President Charles Florio, who was an NCHC enthusiast. This year’s Witt Scholar was Avery Woods, a homeschooled student from Omaha, Texas, who presented work on Revolutionary Negativity. Woods’ poster adopted a Kantian position that though revolutions sound promising and necessary, they essentially eradicate all laws, and essentially create more problems than they solve. Her poster included not only the textbook cases of revolutionary overstretch such as the Russian and French Revolutions, but even the American and Texan Revolutions.
Only two other NTCC students qualified to present a poster at the NCHC this year, the lowest figure in this category since 2017, and before that, 2008. Vanessajane Bayna presented her double-award winning work on oil and politics. Remington Covey, a homeschooled resident of Camp County, presented his election-relevant work on American Presidents who polarized the electorate.
Covey’s and Woods’ posters now adorn the west walls of the Humanities buildings at NTCC. Anyone desiring a visual summary of Bayna’s work can consult this year’s film trailer which is based on the story she pioneered:
Honors Northeast is now the only community college honors program in the nation to have presented continuously at the NCHC since 2008. Another interesting feature of this participation was the election of Vanessajane Bayna as student leader of the Great Plains Honors Council. The plenary members of the GPHC also attended the NCHC, and Bayna received a round of applause when announced as the regional conference’s student leader.
NTCC Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox noted, “a striking aspect of our participation this year was the strength of our film panel. I believe that Bayna, Hodson, Majors, and Rivero gave the best, most fluent and interesting panel presentation of the ten we have been able to sponsor at the NCHC over the years. Again, though, we are beholden to a very special support system, inside the college and among our donors that has given our scholars an edge through the years.”
Dating back to 1966, the NCHC is the oldest intervarsity organization in the United States dedicated to Honors education. It has 900-member institutions, mainly in the United States, but inclusive of institutions on three continents.
