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Atlanta, GA | Posted: August 15, 2014
Rebecca Keane
Summary Sentence:
The Georgia Tech Honors Program, now entering its ninth year, is bidding farewell to its founding director Greg Nobles, who is stepping down from the position as fellow Ivan Allen College professor Roberta Berry takes over.
Full Summary:
The Georgia Tech Honors Program, now entering its ninth year, is bidding farewell to its founding director Greg Nobles, who is stepping down from the position as fellow Ivan Allen College professor Roberta Berry takes over.
GT Honors Program
Gregory Nobles
Roberta BerryThe Georgia Tech Honors Program, now entering its ninth year, is bidding farewell to its founding director Greg Nobles, who is stepping down from the position as fellow Ivan Allen College professor Roberta Berry takes over.
Nobles, professor in the School of History, Technology, and Society, served as co-chair of the committee that first developed the Honors Program in 2004. He has been with the program since its inception and helped design a curriculum that emphasizes intellectual engagement and the mutual exchange of ideas. Founded on the ideals of curiosity, inquiry, engagement, and commitment, the program has benefited faculty just as much as students. It has provided an intellectually supportive space for faculty members to develop new ideas, approaches to teaching, relationships with outstanding undergraduate students, and research inspiration.
“One of the things the Honors Program classes do best,” said Nobles, “is to go beyond the standard GT emphasis on immediate problem-solving through a quick technological fix—which we all do sometimes need—and instead ask questions that don’t have readily discernable right answers or a short time-frame.”
The Honors Program challenges students to locate themselves in a larger social, cultural, and even personal context and to try to understand their place in relation to people and places beyond their academic comfort zone. This is evidenced by recent honors courses like Mindfulness, The Urban Forest, Global Citizenship, Walking, and Semester in the City. The knowledge gained from taking these courses is valuable in and of itself, but the overall approach is something that Nobles hopes students will keep with them throughout their lives.
Students selected for the program exhibit some of the same characteristics expected from Ivan Allen College students, including intellectual curiosity, an appreciation for the life of the mind, and the willingness to deal with the ambiguities of a complex world.
Roberta Berry, who has assumed the role of director, is an associate professor in the School of Public Policy and holds a joint appointment with Georgia State University’s College of Law as a professor of, policy, ethics, and science and technology law. Berry has launched several educational initiatives since joining the faculty in 1999, including building Tech’s pre-law program, connecting students interested in intellectual property law with mentors, and engaging students with projects in bioethics and biotechnology.
“I step down with a feeling of both achievement and relief,” said Nobles. “I am delighted to know that Roberta Berry will now be in a position to keep the spirit, if not the specifics, of the Honors Program alive for the future”
