By: Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC Honors Director
Each spring the National Collegiate Honors Council releases the names of students who have been accepted to present scholarly works at the upcoming fall conference. This year, the freshmen honors group at NTCC obtained an all-time college record for the number of acceptances. Katelyn Cox, Maritza Quinones, Jaidyn Thompson, Gem Elmore, and Samuel Griffin all were elected to present posters, while Jalyn English will join Honors Director, Dr. Andrew Yox in presenting a panel on NTCC’s Caldwell-Award-winning films.
The National Collegiate Honors Council is the oldest and largest association for honors programs, and honors colleges in the United States. It comprises 900 member institutions, both universities and community colleges. The NCHC dates back to 1966, and 65 percent of all honors programs in the nation, as well as a scattered group of programs in other nations, are members.
The first link between NTCC and the NCHC was President Charles Florio, who served the college from 1995 to 2008. Florio worked extensively with a founder of the NCHC, Dr. C. Gray Austin, while at Ohio State University. As Dr. Florio helped to implement the Honors Program at NTCC in 2007, he helped to enable the college’s relationship with the national body.
NTCC students have presented continuously at nationals since 2008, alongside juniors and seniors from major universities. This year, each NTCC scholar was able to leverage a special advantage in winning an acceptance. English’s film, and the essays of Cox, and Quinones won Caldwell cash awards on the state level. Griffin combined his interests in music and scholarship for a work on Gene Autry; Elmore’s work on integration featured a number of prominent local interviews on regional churches, and Thompson gained a unique perspective for her essay, interviewing the prominent Morris-County lawyer now residing in Dallas, Harold Nix.
“We are remarkably fortunate for the special opportunities our college and community have conferred on our student scholars of Northeast Texas. Anonymous donors, for example, have helped make the annual trek to the NCHC both a lucrative arrangement for our students, and an honor” notes Yox.
The group represents a rough outline of NTCC’s service delivery area. Sam Griffin is from Pittsburg, Jaidyn Thompson from Daingerfield, and Maritza Quinones, from Mount Pleasant. Gem Elmore is from Winnsboro, Katelyn Cox from Mount Vernon, and Jalyn English from Bogata.
