This year we celebrated 20 years of Honors education at LCU. Our celebration started with an alumni coffee at the end of the fall 2019 semester and a reminder of the various contributions that Honors has given to the university.  An infographic, posted around campus during the year, provides a timeline of some of those accomplishments.

During the February Homecoming events, Dr. Cary Chisholm spoke in chapel and emphasized the importance of Christian education.

At an Honors Alumni luncheon, a majority of the first Honors Program cohort reminisced with founding Honors director Dr. Jim Bullock, who received a special acknowledgement for his visionary leadership. Dr. Stacy Patty also received an award for his outstanding service, dedication, and exemplary leadership in the creation and direction of the Honors College.

The college also presented the following alumni awards:

• Cary Chisholm, M.D., Outstanding Achievement in the Sciences
• Kristen Vander-Plas LaFeniere, J.D., Outstanding Achievement in the Arts
• Holly Cooke Hoeffner, Exemplary Christian Service

This fall we also hosted an Honors research and pizza event, which featured the following Honors alumni presentations:

Ashley Cherry, Lubbock Christian University, “A Mathematics Professor’s Study of Exam Wrappers: Increasing Student Resilience and Developing Self-Regulated Learners in College Algebra”

Courtney Cook, Abilene Christian University, “Sunglass and White Canes: Creating and Writing Accurate Blind Characters in Fiction”

Cole Long, Texas Tech University, “Smoothing Splines on Spherical Domains”

The Honors College sponsored the LCU induction ceremony for the Alpha Chi National College Honor Society, a national organization with nearly a 100-year history. We inducted 23 new members representing 22 majors.

This year we had 15 finalists who completed two rigorous days of on-campus interviews and activities. We awarded full scholarships to Annabeth Allison, Anna Cary, Rebekah DeYoung, Lindsey Elison, and Lukas Moreno, as well as other major scholarship packages to the other finalists.

National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR)

Honors students continue to stand out for their research work. Out of 17 LCU students who were accepted to NCUR in the spring, 12 were Honors students (Kailin Davis, Sarah Fantinel, Kaitlyn Fell, Peyton Fortner, Taylor Haynes, Caitlin Mannon, Joshua Ochoa, Rita Reyes, Caleb Scoggins, Luke Shelburne, Caleb Ward, Madison Wheeler). Although the conference was ultimately canceled due to COVID-19, the number of Honors students who were accepted at this competitive national conference is indicative of their excellent research work.


Research Awards

Every spring LCU presents several Outstanding Undergraduate Research Awards. Out of the eight award finalists, six were Honors students (Caitlin Mannon, Caleb Ward, Joshua Ochoa, Luke Shelburne, Madison Wheeler, Rita Reyes).


Honors Scholars

In the spring, 12 students graduated as Honors Scholars, a distinction reserved for students who engage in advanced research and write an Honors thesis. Their thesis titles are listed below.

Alexis Carter: “Can Mass and School Shooters Be Classified as Domestic Terrorists?”

Courtney Cook: “Sunglasses and White Canes: Creating and Writing Accurate Blind Characters in Fiction.”

Sarah Fantinel: “Redefining the Novella: An Exploration and Identification of Generic Form”

Kaitlyn Fell: “Characterization of Fatty Acid Composition in Peanuts Using Gas Chromatography and Refractometry”

Taylor Haynes: “Employee Disability Accommodations Specific to Social Work Tasks”

Amira McKee: “Meaning and Usage of “Que es Que” for Heritage Speakers of Spanish in the Southwestern United States”

Brittany Michaleson: “The Analysis of the Number of Female Members on the Boards of Directors in Texas Higher Education Institutions"

Michaela Nix: “Proposal to Increase Cattle Production by Decreasing the Aggressive Gene”

Joshua Ochoa: “Sequence diversity in ARAH3, a major allergen in cultivated peanut.”

Rita Reyes: “The Construction Worker Act of 2020: a Policy Proposal for the Integration of Undocumented Immigrants into the United States of America”

Luke Shelburne: “Swords into Plowshares: An Ecological Reading of the Prophet Micah”

Emmalea Marie Thacker: “A Comprehensive Reading of the Sixth Amendment”

Brittany Michaleson (Mass Communications major) worked at the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Voice of America, Latin American Division.  Her primary roles related to the planning and production of a television weekly show for Latin American distribution.  Brittany’s internship site manager, Janice Jones, noted that Brittany “quickly assumed the position of trusted team member with Venezuela 360 and contributed to the group on many levels.”

Molly Garton (Organizational Communications major) worked at the U.S. Department of Justice in the Executive Office for the United States Attorneys Strategic Communications Department.  Her job duties included work with social media platforms and general support or the U.S. Attorney’s internal communications us.  Molly’s internship site manager, Kristen Schenck, noted that “Molly was an incredible intern” whom she could “fully rely on.”

Even with COVID-19 restrictions in the Washington metropolitan area, LCU currently has one student in Washington. Emma VerHage (Secondary Education major) works at the Council for Opportunity in Education (COE).  As a public policy intern, her duties focus on strategies for the expansion of college opportunities for low-income, first-generation students and students with disabilities in the United States.

The first three students to complete the linguistics minor at LCU are Brittany Michaleson, Brooklyn Ward, and Amira McKee.

Brittany Michaleson is a Communications major, minoring in Spanish and Linguistics and the recipient of the 2019 Outstanding Linguistics Student Award. Her favorite things about the linguistics program were the eventful class discussions and Dr. Pahom's passion for the subject, which always made class interesting. While at LCU, Brittany was involved in the Honors program, the social club Kappa Phi Kappa, studied abroad in Spain, and participated in an internship with Voice of America in Washington, D.C. After graduation, Brittany started working as a multimedia journalist for Fox 34 in Lubbock.

Brooklyn Ward is a History major and a Linguistics minor. She enjoys exploring the connections between language, history, and rhetoric, all of which were highlighted in her senior research project. She is planning to investigate these connections further in graduate school.

Amira McKee is a Humanities major with a Spanish emphasis and a Linguistics minor and the recipient of the 2020 Outstanding Linguistics Student Award. She wrote her Honors thesis on a discourse marker among heritage Spanish speakers. Some of the things she enjoyed about the Linguistics minor were the discussion format of our classes and the Conversation Analysis project for which she recorded and analyzed how her friends talk. While at LCU, Amira enjoyed travelling with the Cross-Country team, climbing the rock wall, and eating chocolate chip cookies in the Caf. She plans on working in a Human Services career after graduation.

Join us in serving students at LCU. Donations may be designated to the Honors College Alumni Endowed Scholarship Fund or to the Honors College Fund.