“Success comes about in a lot of different ways. The standard path, while great, is not the only path,” said history professor and honors program director Mark Sawin after the keynote addresses at the annual honors banquet.
Sunday marked the conclusion of another successful Honors Weekend. From trivia to escape rooms, the honors program worked hard to ensure prospective honors students enjoyed their weekend at EMU. The weekend included the honors banquet, tons of Thai food, trivia, conversations, and advice. Professors, current honors students, and prospectives all gathered to take part, and the evening finished with two inspirational speeches.
Keeping with tradition, Sawin invited two EMU alumni to speak at the annual honors banquet. After conversations Sawin had with many honors students, he made his goal to “bring in students whose paths after graduation were not your typical ‘I went to med school’ or ‘I went to grad school,’” he said, “which is the majority of our honors students who we would bring in… Those stories are exactly what students are expecting and wanting, but I guess I decided I wanted a different narrative … Katrina and Larisa are both amazing and they’re both doing amazing jobs and amazing things but their roads there were completely bizarre, Katrina especially.”
Katrina Alger currently works as an Ecologist/ Presidential Management Fellow at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison Wis., part of the U.S. Geological Survey (the science arm for the Department of Interior). Alger talked about her unconventional path to success. She went to college for a year, took a seven-year break, came back to EMU to work, ended up going back to school, and then got her masters at the State University of New York, which led her to the job she has now.
Alger is no stranger to questioning the right path in life, and along with her story and advice, she emphasized her gratitude to EMU through said questions. She spoke of “the value of being at an institution like EMU while wrestling with these types of life questions. The first time I left EMU it was because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but the second time I stayed at EMU because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. Being in a place where I could broaden my intellectual horizons while being both challenged and supported by faculty and fellow students was an incredible gift.”
Her connection to EMU has popped up more often than she would’ve thought in her working life, and she said it is a pleasant reminder of the personal and academic impact of this school.
The second speaker, EMU alum Larisa Zehr, talked about how EMU helped her to understand the importance of context. “EMU has a peace and justice focus from every different orientation you can have it—and that is an alternative orientation to the world.” She was grateful for that focus, however. Zehr also spoke about the wide range of opportunities she had at EMU and how that shaped her here and in the rest of her life. “Having the space to grow here really allowed me to make [EMU] my own place.”
Opportunities and values seemed to be a common theme throughout the evening, as well as in past years. Sophomore and honors council member Hannah Leaman appreciates the speakers as a part of honors weekend. “I think it’s a good chance for EMU to reflect its values in other ways than just pure advertisements,” Leaman said. “Instead of telling students ‘Hey, this is what we’re all about’ through advertisements, they can show that through the people that have come through here that have EMU’s values. I remember when I was at honors weekend the speaker really relieved some worries and tensions that I had about EMU because of the values that she held. I thought, ‘Well, if they’re putting her in a position to speak to us then they obviously support her.’”
Alger finished out her speech with some reassurance for all in the room. She encouraged everyone to stay flexible, curious, and “regardless of whether you’re just starting your college career, or winding it down, it’s okay to not know what comes next.”
