Students find TRACTS program invigorating and fulfilling
Sponsored by LSU Ogden Honors College
For the first time in the history of the school, this fall, the LSU Ogden Honors College welcomed its inaugural class into the elite Honors Traditions in Critical Thought and Scholarship (TRACTS) degree. The inaugural Honors TRACTS class comprises 30 students, and each TRACTS cohort will remain small in order to attract the best students from across the country while retaining top talent here in the state of Louisiana.
Pushing the boundaries
Junior Irene Kaiser is among those accepted into Honors TRACTS. A native of Lafayette who is also majoring in Kinesiology, Kaiser said she always felt like something had been missing in her education, and TRACTS was exactly what she was looking for.
“I can’t tell you how many different majors I’ve experimented with while looking for the level of collaboration that comes with a truly interdisciplinary approach,” Kaiser said. “I found it with TRACTS.”
Freshman Jack Monroe, a Biological Engineering major from Cincinnati, Ohio, is double-majoring in Honors TRACTS. While he has family ties to Louisiana, the innovative TRACTS program was one of the reasons he attended LSU.
“In high school, I had some experiences that pushed boundaries of traditional education in a similar way, so TRACTS really caught my eye,” Monroe said. “It’s been a fantastic experience so far.”
Honors TRACTS students choose to be challenged by the curriculum and they find the experience incredibly fulfilling.
“Yeah, my [Classical Antiquity] class probably has the heaviest workload with all the reading we do, but I don’t really care because I’m excited for discussions in class the next day,” Monroe said. “I think it’s going to set me apart in the future, whether it’s graduate school, medical school, or going into the workforce.”
Insightful and engaged
Ogden Honors College Associate Dean Drew Lamonica Arms, an Honors College graduate and Rhodes Scholar who was instrumental in designing Honors TRACTS, said TRACTS students are “some of the most insightful and engaged undergraduates” she’s taught in her 25 years of teaching in the college.
Lamonica Arms realized the years of curriculum development and planning had paid off when, in one of her class discussions of the Odyssey, Honors TRACTS students who’d been discussing Odysseus’ navigation tactics began comparing and evaluating his choices through a utilitarian lens – something covered in one of their other Honors classes.
“They make connections among disparate ideas, discuss with both passion and specificity, and truly make our time together in the classroom invigorating,” Lamonica Arms said. “All I have to do is ask a question and they’re off!”
