Read Fall 2025 AHA!
The art of engineering | Exceeding the boundaries of the book | Encouraging greatness: Dr. Harold ‘Hal’ French Course Enrichment Fund enables innovative teaching, honors influential mentor | Jonathan Aun's Honors College experience helped shape his successful career path into medicine
2025 Honors Alumni Award Winners & Homecoming Recap
If you’re reading this sentence, thank you — you must be a supporter of the South Carolina Honors College, or at least a curious person –– or perhaps, I suppose, a confused person if you’re reading this by mistake and about to abandon (reader)ship. Our friends and alumni elevate the extraordinary undergraduate experience we’re offering, and our current students are seizing opportunities. If you’re still reading, oh my, you’re in for a treat: Not because of this note (not scintillating yet, I know), but because of the profiles in this edition of AHA!, our Honors alumni magazine. They’re utterly fascinating — both because of the Honors alumni who are profiled, but also because Valerie Weingart, our writer, operates at a New Yorker level of insight, eloquence and curiosity. And Chris Horn, who has been contributing great pieces to university publications for a long time, also has a great profile here. Really, the writing in this issue is terrific. Check it out.
But first, a few words about the Honors College: Although there is some undeniable turbulence in higher education right now, the Honors College and University of South Carolina, overall, are thriving. Applications to the Honors College for next year, for instance, are up by 34 percent, and counting, and we will almost certainly set another record. Our students come here with profiles that are comparable to students enrolling in the most elite colleges and universities. Their outcomes are equally remarkable, as they graduate, win awards and fellowships and secure places in the workforce, in law schools, graduate schools, medical schools, etc.
I hope you enjoy this edition of AHA!. Let me know if you’re going to be on campus — I’d love to say hello.