News & Events
Honors Scholars and BMI Students Visit Nation’s Capital
The Honors Scholars Program and the Black Male Initiative (BMI) jointly sponsored a three-day, two-night trip to Washington, D.C., January 23 through 25, 2009. Forty-one Honors and BMI students participated in this rewarding and stimulating expedition. Mathematics Professor Janet Liou-Mark along with Laura Yuen-Lau, Honors Scholars Program assistant, Sonia Johnson, BMI assistant, and Kurt Sealy (BMI president) supervised the outing.
The BMI program, under the leadership of Physics Professor Reginald Blake, provided funding for this trip. Since the BMI program seeks to attract, retain and graduate students from under-represented groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), student participants were encouraged to develop a project from the experience gained from the trip.
Student teams explored STEM-related concepts that are exhibited in either the Smithsonian Institution or the other sights visited. This collaboration among students from various majors is a learning experience that extends beyond the classroom setting. Student teams will be presenting their projects during the Honors and Emerging Scholars Poster Presentation scheduled for May 7 and 8, 2009.
“I learned so much during this trip and will never look at the history of this great country in the same light again,” says Lerone Bleasdille, president of City Tech’s Student Government Association.
“To create a community where students from different ethnicities, backgrounds and majors come together to learn and explore,” says Professor Liou-Mark, “is what the Honors Scholars Program seeks to achieve. This trip to Washington, D.C., was an experience by means of which all 41 students formed solid friendships and learned how to work in unison in an interdisciplinary setting – a much-needed skill in today’s workforce.”
The group’s first destination was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where the students were greeted by City Tech alumnus Larry R. Felix, a 1980 graduate of the College's liberal arts program, who encouraged them to do their very best in all they strive for in life. Other cites toured included the United States Capitol and the Smithsonian Institution, which encompasses the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Art and the National Air and Space Museum. The students also visited the White House, the Washington Monument, Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials.
“At the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, I was amazed by the processing techniques used to produce money,” says BMI student Shawn Mitchell, “and amazed again by the enthralling history of rocket design and engineering at the Smithsonian. I was equally moved by the designs of our national monuments and by the architecture of our nation’s capital. All of this and more made this trip intellectually enriching and left me with a sense of great satisfaction in having made it.”
And finally this from Honor Scholar student Lori Younge: “The history of this country could not have come alive to me more than when I walked through the various exhibits of the different museums at the Smithsonian and acquired a sense of what things were like during the past and the types of technology that were available during those times. It was amazing to be reminded how much science and technology have advanced in fairly recent years. I’m not a fan of history and was never really good at it in school. But visiting the museums sparked a powerful respect for the past events that have shaped our country. The events that are occurring today will shape our country into something else that will amaze future students when they make similar trips.”
02.26.09
