September 30, 2014

New director maps social justice to Honors Program landscape

This fall, the University Honors Program welcomed a new director, Victoria Lawson, professor of geography, internationally-recognized scholar on global poverty and co-founder of the Relational Poverty Network.

“Honors is amazing. It drew me in because of what it does,” says Lawson. “One of the things we share is a commitment to trying to tackle complex problems. Honors is a place where students are forced to think about big questions and think about them through an interdisciplinary lens.”

In this role, Lawson brings the interdisciplinary perspective of geography to Honors, complementing the program’s interdisciplinary curriculum and enhancing it in several ways. One way she hopes to affect the curriculum is to bring more Honors students into her work around understanding global poverty.

“Vicky Lawson’s work is so relevant to Honors and to the times we live in,” says Ed Taylor, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Academic Affairs, where the Honors Program is housed. “As we think about Honors as interdisciplinary thinking about interdisciplinary issues, there is no better person and scholar to lead our students and staff.”

Crossing campus boundaries by design

The University Honors Program engages a diverse population of students through a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum that promotes expansive, innovative thinking and conscious global citizenship. Lawson calls Honors’ curricular approach and her background and interests a “perfect marriage.” She invites students into her own research endeavors, mentors undergraduate researchers and graduate students, incorporates service-learning into her classes and works in a global landscape. Lawson looks forward to working with the staff on ways to continue foregrounding issues of social justice and global challenges into the curriculum so students can easily follow their academic interests—whether they are related to poverty or not—through their Honors core classes.

“What are the most challenging questions ahead of you, what are you worried about, what do you think about and what do you want to be engaged in?” Lawson asks of students.

Lawson is eager to learn about the grand challenges students care about, whether it be climate change, immigration politics, healthcare, etc. and helping them realize that “the only way you’re going to answer these questions is through complex ways of knowing and that requires you to be open to multiple disciplines and perspectives.”

This aim dovetails with a major part of Lawson’s work: co-leading the Relational Poverty Network, a network she co-founded with fellow geography professor Sarah Elwood. The Relational Poverty Network is comprised of more than 150 scholars from different disciplines and from around the world whose work centers on critical poverty studies. Lawson already brings Honors students into the network and plans to involve them even more, beginning quite soon.

On October 10, 2014, the Relational Poverty Network will host its first annual meeting at the University of Washington, bringing scholars from across the U.S., Canada, Argentina, India and South Africa to share their research on issues of poverty. Honors students are integrally involved in the planning and execution of this day-long event and students, faculty and staff from across the University will be invited to attend.

Critical learning creates a path to discovery

Lawson began her tenure as Honors Program director in mid-September so while her goals for the program at this early stage are general, one goal is very clear: tell the story of Honors broadly. In addition to the many and varied student successes, Lawson wants to “be able to give voice to the kinds of experiences that faculty have when they teach in Honors. Distill the ways in which Honors creates a community, both for faculty and students in the middle of this large university…really helping people understand how Honors contributes to and partners with many, many other units on campus.”

Currently, 876 students are pursuing the interdisciplinary track in Honors and 481 are pursuing the departmental track. Honors students choose majors from across the University, representing 69 departments from across all schools and colleges. The 2014 Honors freshman class is 224 students strong. The average GPA of the Honors entering class is 3.92, and 84% hail from public school, 15% are from private school and 1% were homeschooled. Seventy-six percent cite the Honors Program as a major reason they selected the UW.

In the years to come, as UW students are selected for national scholarships and other forms of recognition of accomplishments and future promise, it’s very likely that those scholars will be Honors students. Since the program’s inception in 1961, nearly all of the UW’s Rhodes Scholars and Marshall Scholars, and all of the Gates-Cambridge Scholars were Honors students.

While this type of recognition reflects the talent and hard work of Honors students and the community of faculty, staff, mentors, and family that supports them, that’s not the whole picture. Lawson finds the most inspiring student stories are the narratives of “self-discovery in the midst of critical learning. It’s not only being asked to achieve, which they are, but having space within that achievement and that work to also discover and find self and build a path that reflects their own passions, skills and values.”

Anything but geography

If you had asked a teenage Victoria Lawson if she saw herself as a geographer, you would have heard an emphatic “anything but geography!” However, a geography professor at Leicester University in England, her undergraduate alma mater, changed that. Not only did she continue to pursue geography through graduate school at The Ohio State University but considers experiences with one brilliant and passionate professor in a geography class as pivotal to her commitment to teaching.

Lawson’s dedication and ability to teach has been recognized with both a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1996, several teaching awards from the Department of Geography, and a Marsha Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award. She is honored by all of these awards but calls out the Graduate Mentor Award as something special because it is “an incredibly rewarding kind of teaching that involves heart, mind and soul of both parties, of the adviser and the advisee.”

A widely published and highly sought-after academic, Lawson has also undertaken leadership roles in her field, department and across campus. She was elected president of the Association of American Geographers (2004-05), served as chair of the Department of Geography (1997-2000), led campus-based leadership search committees and more.

As she prepares to teach this quarter and continue her focus on innovative and inclusive inquiry, Lawson plans to guide Honors students toward their authentic place in the world, asking, “What are the most challenging questions ahead of you, what are you worried about, what do you think about, and what do you want to be engaged in?”