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One of the great things about the Davidson Honors College is that you get to jump
into your education so much, and I think that is a choice that a student has to make.
Do you want to go further in your education and have those great
experiences or do you just want to be in a seat in a classroom and you go to the class
and you do the minimum then you leave?
I have worked with some of America's finest college students; I work with some of America's finest faculty
at the University of Montana,
and I'm in the business of creating opportunities.
Typically I'll ask a student whats your dream, what's your aspiration, and then how can we achieve that?
I toured the school and I just loved it.
Coming from out of state I was really nervous about you know making new friends here cause I didn't know anyone.
As long as you leave your door open, the first week or two on campus you meet lots
of really great people.
Still I'm friends with a lot of the kids I met freshman year here at the honors college.
It was kinda the easy set group of friends your freshmen year to jump right into
that you didn't have to worry about searching for I guess.
With the Honors College you don't really see the barriers,
you're just people.
The idea that honors students don't do anything but stick their nose in books
is absolutely wrong.
There's hiking,
International Food Festival,
going downtown,
concerts at The Wilma,
great restaurants,
kayaking, folfing, biking,
snowboarding in the winter. Skiing. Hunting, fishing are all great. Floating the river,
you can float right up to your dorm room, lakes near by for jet skiing, boating,
wake boarding.
There's white water rafting,
there's rock climbing,
Well I think that students would come to the University of Montana for the same reasons that I'm teaching here.
I really really love Missoula.
Honors classes are taught by the best professors.
The professors I found are amazing.
The honors college professors I've had
have all been my favorite professors.
I always start the class off with my ink spell
pulled off the first time through
as if it was magic powers I have and eventually they figure out what
the science is behind the demonstration.
Teaching is a joy for me,
and I think its partly because there are things that I can teach students
and there are things students can teach me, and I like it when we are in a
situation in which we can all learn from each other.
The big difference is class size.
In my fall course I had 684 students.
In my honors subsection I had 19.
So I really get to know the students in my class.
I just can't do that with my large format class.
The honors college I can bring in two didgeridoos and all the students get to play them. We spend a week
in the forensic lab so all the students are hands on. There are only front row seats at the honors college.
The faculty here in Montana
is just as good and in some cases… better
than a lot of schools you'll pay a lot more for.
The Honors College is for exceptional students
and we offer them exceptional opportunities.
There are plenty of opportunities to take what you learn and apply it to the real world.
So that when you graduate, you already have job experience.
In the Honors College there are people who know these students, know them really well
and can say this would be a great opportunity for you, you out to apply.
I did a study abroad
in the Cook Islands this past summer and worked in a vet clinic down there.
People would bring in their pigs, they'll bring in chickens, they'll bring in goats.
We had a lot of goats.
One opportunity I'm hoping to take advantage of here is I wanna be involved in the
Washington Center Internship Program.
Which through the Honors College they place you in some sort of
internship with an organization or agency in
Washington DC in what ever major you are interested in.
Over the summer I worked for Missoula's daily newspaper
and I wrote four or five stories a day.
I wasn't thrown just the fluff pieces.
I had three that appeared on the front page.
Global Grizzlies is a completely student run non-profit organization
It takes approximately ten Pre-Med or Pre-Health students every summer
and travels to some developing nation around the world to do volunteer medical work.
The very first year Global Grizzlies traveled they went to Kenya
and after their volunteer trip they went on a Safari there.
The office for civic engagement is a resource center for students on campus
and we're here to help connect students with community based opportunities.
Last year we had over 1,600 students from the campus involved
in providing 161,000 hours of service to the community.
So that's close to $2.2 million of economic impact that our student volunteers have on the community.
Rome is my favorite place and Italy is my favorite country
so it's good to bring students there.
We always go to the Coliseum.
We always eat lots of gelato. It just gives students a chance to go
with someone who knows what they should see.
When I came back from spring break, this tan
and stories about Africa everybody said "I wanna go!I wanna go!".
I said you guys if you wanna go, let's do it!
We crammed into these hot air balloons and were floating
over the Serengeti. Wildebeests, hippopotamuses, zebras, lions, giraffes,
cape buffalo all right below us.
Its just the whole trip was magic.
Our daughter Morgan Eichwald was a presidential scholar with the Davidson Honors College.
She loved it.
She was dancing at the San Francisco Consortium of Dance
and then she just recently had an opportunity to apply for a position with Google in the Bay area
but I think at this moment in time she is going to actually start her graduate program this
coming fall at San Francisco State in physics.
If you have a question about course registration or your thinking about an internship
or you want to find money to study abroad.
You walk in the door and you say hi to Andy and she says aw sure we
can schedule a time for you to meet with the dean, or yeah you need to talk to Laurie.
They're always there to help you.
There's no down side to joining the Honors College.
There's a lot of opportunities. There's personal advisors here,
they aren't just you know advising 300 biology students.
Professors that are, you know are really teaching those classes because they love to.
There's a lot of scholarships available, a lot of volunteer opportunities.
I just can't see any downsides to it all.
I've never found a place that really
stands behind their students like the Honors College
and just to be a part of it,
when you walk in you just feel ahhhh. I love the Honors College.
There is something special, there's magic in these halls.
The University of Montana would be a very different place if it didn't have the Honors College.
I've loved it, I have zero complaints about The Davidson Honors College.