Honors REACT is a seminar-style course that provides Honors students with a comprehensive analysis of the Honors Program pillars, and will serve as a foundation for your Honors education at Temple. The pillars of the Honors Program are: inclusive community, intellectual curiosity, social courage, and integrity in leadership. Each section of Honors REACT will have the exact same syllabus - meaning you will be reading the same material, considering the same questions, engaging in the same actions - as hundreds of other Honors students at the same time. By taking part, you are sharing an educational experience designed to create a deeply connected community of curious thinkers and problem solvers across the first-year class.

Through examination of the Honors pillars, you will gain skills pivotal to your success at Temple and beyond. In addition to unpacking the designated topics and themes, each week will be an opportunity to connect with your peers, the Honors staff, and yourself. This seminar is for students interested in exploring their own identity through reflection on how they operate in the larger context of the communities they belong to. This experience will give you the knowledge and tools to decide how you want to shape your time at Temple and beyond.

Each week, Honors students will Read, Engage, Act, Consider and Team-up (or REACT) by doing the following:  

• The Read and Engage parts will be the academic, nerdy content to get their wheels turning and frame our understanding of that week’s topic: readings, podcasts, articles, etc.   

• After students Read and Engage, they will perform a small Action on their own or with others – on campus and/or in the larger North Philadelphia community – before we meet in class.  

• Then, students will submit a weekly Consider journal entry, responding to specific questions or prompts related to the readings and actions of the week.  

• Finally, when we come together as class in our weekly meetings, we will Team-Up for activities and discussions about what was learned in the past week.  

As of Fall 2021, Honors students who complete the Honors REACT course will have this course count towards their Honors course requirements.