Ten Kent State Honors College students and faculty traveled to Philadelphia this weekend for the National Collegiate Honors Council conference.

Participants gave presentations on a variety of topics, from the new Honors College building to differences between honors programs.

“I think it gave us a really good experience in presenting and to give a presentation to other college students and professors,” said Samantha Hubbard, junior middle childhood education major. “I’ve never had an opportunity to do that, so it’s really cool to have a chance to teach others at a higher level. It gave me a chance to learn how to do some research, put together a presentation and to talk to people about their college experiences.”

Hubbard and two other Kent State honors students gave a presentation about gifted students who have struggles in school.

“Some of it is just understanding what gifted really means,” Hubbard said. “It’s not just being smart and doing well in school. We talked about trying to incorporate different activities in school to challenge them instead of just leaving them in a normal classroom.”

Deborah Craig, coordinator of scholarships and recruiting for the Honors College, presented on the honors workplace culture. She said it was exciting after her presentation when three colleagues said they would visit Kent State to view the Honors College’s new complex and programs.

“The idea sharing is the best aspect of the conference,” Craig said. “It’s an excellent choice for professionals because of the access to colleagues and other programs.”

In addition to presenting research, participants attended different information sessions about other honors colleges’ programs.

“There were a lot of interesting sessions about stuff that we don’t have here at Kent,”sophomore finance major Alex Kamarashki said. “Now we might try to get some of those ideas here at our campus.”

He said several of the more interesting sessions were on peer mentoring, video essays for tests instead of written essays and a lecture on freedom of speech.

“The lecture gave information that’s important to know for the whole human aspect,” Kamarashki said. “It’s nice to know where the law will go in 10 or 15 years from now. The more you know about your rights, the better citizen you are.”

In addition to research, the participants took time to go sight-seeing around Philadelphia.

“I think the trip was a good thing for me,” Hubbard said. “First of all, I’m really busy in my semester right now and it gave me a break from doing homework all weekend. It was great just getting to travel to a city I haven’t been able to see before and getting to go to a conference that was prestigious. The whole experience was really great. I feel like I learned a lot.”

Contact honors and international affairs reporter Katie Roupe at [email protected].