The Community's Purpose 
This new floor will provide a place for highly motivated students to build friendships with peers, strive for deeper learning, and create new links between their experiences inside and outside of the classroom. Through social events, service opportunities, and avenues for leadership, students will engage with each other and with the Honors Program in a community focused way. The floor will also serve as an anchor for other Honors Program initiatives, including meetings, speakers, and social gatherings.
*Students applying to live on this floor should normally meet honors eligibility standards: a Calvin GPA of at least 3.3 and involvement in at least one honors course or contract per year. But in the first year of this community's development, these standards will not be required of everyone. For returning students, if two roommates want to live here together and one is not participating in the Honors Program, both would be eligible to apply. Incoming students qualify to enter the Honors Program by test scores (ACT 29+ or SAT 1290+). These students will normally be expected to take at least one honors course or cluster each year they live on this floor.
Residents of the floor will commit to the following
- Attendance at floor meetings at least once a month
- Participation in floor learning and social events at least once a month
- Participation in development and implementation of floor standards for quiet hours, additional involvement expectations, and evaluation processes for the community
- Involvement in the Honors Program to the extent possible (* see note above), such as taking an Honors course or negotiating an Honors contract during the academic year.
Is this community for me?
The Honors Program is having a growing impact on campus life at Calvin, providing students with opportunities to engage their academic work more deeply and develop strong relationships with peers and faculty members inside the classroom and beyond. Honors students can register for clustered honors courses in their first semester, or for designated honors sections of core courses at any time; they can contract for honors credit in any regular course, and at the junior and senior level they often conduct research with faculty mentors in their major -- sometimes they even co-author publications or make presentations with the faculty.
In 2008-2009 the Honors Program and Residence Life Department plan to pilot a new housing cluster for honors students on one floor of the new wing of Kalsbeek-Huizenga. There will be room for approximately 20 men and 20 women, selected from interested applicants. This unique housing opportunity for motivated students, primarily in their first or second year at Calvin, is intended to build a stronger sense of community among honors students and create new links between their experience inside and outside of the classroom. The 2008-2009 academic year will focus on "becoming" an Honors Community--that is, on developing the ideas and framework for a more formal living-learning community the following academic year (2009-2010), which will integrate the academic and experiential aspects of the floor and offer academic credit.
The leaders of Calvin's Honors Program (Classics Prof. Ken Bratt and English Prof. Jennifer Holberg) will work with residence life leaders to integrate a series of special events into the regular routine of life together on a floor. While limited in this first year of the program, these events may include a retreat, service projects, field trips, movie nights, conversations with faculty members or visiting lecturers, and social activities. The floor could also host events for other honors students on campus, or collaborate with other living-learning communities in the new wing of KH. The wing was designed with this in mind, including program and study spaces in the basement, and reception lounges on each floor featuring fireplaces, tables and chairs, and soft seating.
This floor is not intended merely to be a “quiet study floor,” as some colleges create within their residence halls. Rather, it will be a place where students can encourage each other as they seek for deeper learning, enjoying a distinctive experience in living with other motivated students. The intent is to develop a vibrant place of community.
For more information about the Honors Living-Learning Community, please contact John Witte (jwitte@calvin.edu) or Prof. Ken Bratt (kbratt@calvin.edu). Space will be limited in order to balance men and women, and first- and second-year students.