How has your Honors courses differed from your regular courses at GV?

What are pros and cons to these differences?

A: “The students and professors alike really care about education, not just grades.

This means that students are more passionate, opinionated and hard working. This is a pro because I have a greater understanding of how people think and view the world. The expectations for performance in the class are much higher, which has benefitted me, but can also cause a lot of unnecessary stress. There have also been a lot of students pursuing careers in healthcare in my Honors classes and I really appreciated how my professors surveyed the interests of the class and taught, often offering a medical perspective. My sequence professor even brought in a guest lecturer who was a doctor in Ghana.”

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Q: If there could be any changes or additions made to the HC curriculum that

would better prepare you for your future career, life experience, or community involvement, what changes would you make or like to see take place for the future of the FMHC?

A: “The difficulty of Honors sequences can vary a lot, especially when it comes

to reading and writing. I also think it would be beneficial if we talked more about how what we learn applies to our current society or how it impacts us personally.”

Q: How can the Honors College make an impact around GV, the Grand Rapids

community, and professionals in the work place? What are ways that the FMHC can be more well-known and well- renowned?

A: “I think that Honors students should be encouraged to live in regular freshman

housing. This allows people who are different from each other to live in the same space and allows Honors students to share their experiences with non-Honors students. Word of mouth can be a powerful tool for spreading the word about the program. I also think that FMHC relies on email too heavily for communication. The majority of students will not attend an event just because it arrives in their inbox. I think having Honors professors announcing events and activities would be beneficial.”

Stakeholder response to “what is the one thing I didn’t ask you that you think I should have?”

“None.”

Will this stakeholder agree to reconnect for further inquiry? How do they want to be contacted?

Yes, they were willing to speak with me again if I had questions in the future. For Dialogue: Three more connections this stakeholder provided:

N/A

Possible next-steps:

 Talk to faculty and more students to keep gaining empathy  Seek out incoming Grand Valley or college students in general  Speak to parents

 Continue to develop new dialogue questions

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INTERVIEW #21

Stakeholder Group/Location: Honors College students/ Phone Interview w/ Emily Estimated Age: ___ 20-30 _x___ 30-40 _____40-50 ____ 50+

Gender: Female

Primary Goal of this Opportunity:

Gain empathy with our stakeholders, in this case, a fourth year FMHC student, to learn his thoughts on the current curriculum and Honors College experience as a whole. How does conducting this work reflect on your team problem statement?

Our problem statement says the ASAP wants to make the new curriculum appealing and inclusive to all students and majors. Doing this work ensures that we get real input and insights from actual students we are catering to as we create a new curriculum. We are also getting feedback on our top two prototype

concepts to determine whether or not they should be continued or revised. Summary of Research:

The interviewee is a second year Honors student who is studying Nursing and has studied abroad in Ghana, taking both her junior seminar and doing her senior project all while studying overseas. Overall, she is a huge fan of her experience in the Honors College program even though she did not particularly enjoy her Live.Learn.Lead. This interview was a follow-up interview to see her views on the top two prototype concepts we developed. Concerning the secondary language proficiency requirement, she is in favor of it as learning a second language would make the person better-rounded, helps to learn about your own language, and makes the individual more culturally competent while also relating to other people. She believes learning a second language would encourage more culturally diverse knowledge and improve relations with minorities around campus possibly, or create more diverse student integration. While this student loves the idea of job shadowing and community volunteering for Live.Learn.Lead due to the fact it would help people build character, get them a step in the real work place, and more, she desired to keep the freshman sequence as she found it very beneficial in skills practice, forming relationships, and getting ahead in her studies at Grand Valley.

Important insights:

 With the use of technology and the way that business is growing internationally, it is valuable for this reason, to be competent and credible in other cultures

 Pros are that learning a second language would make the person better-rounded, helps one to learn about your own language, and makes the individual more culturally competent while also relating to other people

 Because GV is primarily white, it is important that we gain an understanding of many other cultures due to the fact the work force will be full of people from

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different backgrounds and we as students need to get acclimated to a culturally diverse environment

 Shadowing should be built in to the Honors College and provide transportation and other services to accommodate the students (the interviewee liked shadowing and community volunteering)

 The interviewee liked having a sequence as a freshman because the experience helped them to form a ton of connections and friendships (in response to making sequences sophomore year)

Dialogue Questions and Response:

***Reads First Prototype Concept***