The Honors College seeks to assist both Honors students and the Southern Arizona community by creating student teams that would undertake specific, consequential projects under the close supervision of both the College and partner organizations.

While students have long done internships on an individual basis, Honors Civic Engagement Teams (HCETs) are distinctive. They involve collaborative, interdisciplinary work of explicit importance to our partner organizations. Honors students will have significant responsibility, real expectations placed upon them, close oversight, and professional evaluations of their efforts. They will have staff responsibility. Grounded both in a deep sense of commitment to Arizona’s public and non-profit sectors and confidence in the merits of service learning (academic credit for off-campus work). HCETs help prepare students to enter the real world of professionals in public arena.

Honors students participating in the HCET program receive Honors Internship Experiences, academic credits, either through the Honors College itself (HNRS 393H) or through a comparable departmentally-based Honors internship. Students will follow the process for Honors Internship Experience credit, including completion of some preliminary reading on the idea of community obligation, keeping of a journal depicting the experience, writing a short 5-7 page paper that reflects on the internship, and participation in an internship symposium.

This is an unusual and important opportunity for highly motivated students from ALL disciplines who want “real world” experience that addresses critical public concerns. Selection of the HCETs is competitive, based upon a brief application and interview.

HCETs’ main Objectives

• Career enhancement
• Team skill development
• Interdisciplinary collaboration
• Work as Staff: take professional responsibility for coherent, well-defined responsibilities. Often, these are innovative projects that would not be undertaken without HCETs.

HCET Origins and rationale

• Student need; “real work”; experience with government and non-profit sectors.
• Address community needs
• Need to make UA community efforts more visible
• Need to make Honors College more linked to the community

This Spring HCETs will work on the following projects, normally in teams of 3-4 people drawn from various disciplines.

How to join:

Briefing sessions on HCET are scheduled every beginning of each semester.

Interested students can pick up the brief application at that time or download it from this site. Submit your application to the Honors College front desk, by 5:00pm, Monday, August 27 2007.

For further information, contact

Barbara Whittleseyat 621-6901 or by Email: whittleb@email.arizona.edu