Honors College Connects

Through collaborative community projects and student driven leadership, Honors College Connects students build professional skills while making a real impact in the community beyond Mason.

Through Honors College Connects, Honors College students at George Mason University work in multidisciplinary teams to develop a solution to a strategic challenge offered by a nonprofit or governmental partner. Honors College Connects is a signature program of Mason’s Honors College that has been around almost as long as the College itself. Since 2011, students involved in Honors College Connects have completed 85 projects for 62 local nonprofit or governmental partners (as of December 2023).

Students gain preprofessional skills and develop an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. Partners gain insights into issues of strategic importance and build their connections to Mason. Recent partners include Latino Economic Development Center, MVLE, Fairfax County, League of Women Voters, and Creative and Performing Arts Center (CAPAC).

The Honors College welcomes industry, corporate, and philanthropic donors who wish to sponsor partnerships with nonprofits.

What is the Honors College Connects course? 

The program centers on a 200-level course that meets our curriculum’s Community Engagement/ Connection requirement. We offer one section in Fall, and two sections in Spring. There are 25 students in each section, and project teams have 4-5 members. Thus, each year, Honors College Connects engages a total of 75 students in 15 projects. The program is run with paid student officers and project team mentors, along with volunteer alumni who serve on an advisory board, all under the supervision of the Honors College's Experiential Learning Coordinator.

Each student team is supported to complete their project by a faculty instructor, a paid student mentor, and points of contact from the partnering organization. Work on the project culminates with the public presentation of the team’s proposed solution, as well as a final report that is delivered to the partner.

With whom do we partner?

We work with nonprofit or governmental partners with diverse foci, such as poverty alleviation, civic engagement, the environment, physical/mental health, and more. We strive for a balance of repeat and new partners, providing depth and breadth of benefit to the wider community and our students.

What are the selection criteria for partners?

Scope. The challenge you pose is a strategic question, as opposed to a request for some task to be completed. The student team will be taking on a consultative role by conducting practical research to deliver insights and suggestions for you to consider.

Timing. Your timeline for addressing the challenge aligns with our semester schedule, meaning you are able to wait until after the end of the semester to consider the insights and suggestions generated by the student teams and integrate them, as you wish, into your thinking or future operations.

Staff readiness. You have two staff members who will be readily available to correspond with the student team throughout the semester by video chat and email. There is an optional opportunity to meet with students in-person at the initial meeting and final presentation. Twice a year, we host Honors College Exhibitions featuring student teams’ posters at Mason’s Fairfax campus. We encourage Honors College Connects partners and sponsors to attend.

Knowledge transfer. The amount of knowledge you need to share to make the challenge manageable for the students isn't burdensome for your staff. Since the students are undergraduates coming from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, they will not be experts in any particular body of knowledge.

What value do we offer nonprofit and governmental partners?

1. Honors College Connects allows you to gain the insights that a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate students can bring to a strategic challenge you (or a client of yours) is facing. Students put in 50 hours of group meeting time among themselves. Individual contributions of student team members range between 50 – 75 hours over the semester. As such, a group of three collectively completes 150 – 225 individual work hours to the project, in addition to the 50 hours of group meeting time.

2. Honors College Connects provides your organization with a staff engagement opportunity that is meaningful and, to put it simply, fun. You get the chance to mentor students who will soon become young professionals. It can also serve as a staff development opportunity that hones leadership skills.

3. Honors College Connects gives our partners visibility to George Mason University’s Honors College students, with recognition at our twice-annually exhibitions attended by large numbers of students and university leaders. Our partners are also able to get internship opportunities in front of Honors College students more readily.

4. In addition to their multidisciplinary perspectives, students bring the strength of their collective “beginner’s mind” to a challenge. Guided by the instructor, they engage tools drawn from consulting and human-centered design to potentially uncover novel approaches or insights to the challenge. At minimum, the student team provides an outsider’s perspective on a challenge, which is often validating (and occasionally usefully challenging or complementary) to the partners’ thinking.

What do we require from a partner?

Application. Each Fall and Spring, we open a request for proposals. For Spring, the RFP opens the third week of September and remains open for 4 weeks. For Fall, the RFP opens the third week of February and remains open for 4 weeks. If selected as a partner for Fall, the semester runs the last week of August – first week of December. If selected as a partner for Spring, the semester runs the last week of January – first week of May.

Challenge statement. At the time your organization applies to work with us, we just need brief descriptions of the challenge you propose a student team address. Feel free to suggest a second possible challenge in the application if there is more than one option on your mind. If we select you for an interview, we will spend time discussing the possible project scope. If then selected, we ask for an in-depth half page (or more) that describes the challenge in detail, including some specifications and parameters that provide guidance for the student team.

Two points of contact to act as mentors. We ask that two points of contact from your organization remain in touch with your student team throughout the semester. We ask that you reply to any email correspondence from the student team within 2 business days. There is a virtual onboarding meeting immediately before the start of the semester, along with four required one-hour meetings with your student team: an initial meeting, 33% progress report meeting, 66% progress report meeting, and final presentation. Meetings are about a month apart.

What are some past example project challenges?

We welcome a wide variety of project challenges, so long as there is a strategic element to them.

Examples:

• Internally Facing Challenge: We need help developing a plan to rebuild our nonprofit’s pipeline of long-term volunteers, which is yet to recover after the COVID-19 pandemic. We are looking to cultivate volunteers willing to become leaders within the program, i.e., take ownership, have regular attendance, and train new volunteers. Secondarily, we also need help finding ways to connect with new volunteers to keep them engaged and solidify their commitment.
• Client Facing Challenge: Determine the common profile and challenges of small business owners we serve when it comes to digital transformation processes. Then, develop an action plan to help us mitigate those challenges for our clients. Many small business owners who receive loans from our nonprofit are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with digital tools, such as electronic invoicing and Google search. We want to help these clients modernize and streamline their business by using digital tools.

Interested? Please get in touch with us

Reach out to our Experiential Learning Coordinator, who works to organize and select our nonprofit and governmental partners for the Honors College Connects course.