Attendees
- Ellen McWhorter*, PhD, Honors Program Director
- Lisa Cavallaro*, Honors Program Manager
- Kerry McCarthy*, 2018
- Tori Thistle*, 2018
- Victoria Robbins*, 2018
- Alison Tobin*, 2018
- Alison Hanlon*, 2018
- Megan Sheppard*, 2018
- Courtney Carrozzo*, 2018
- Quinn O’Sullivan, 2020
- Maria D’Auria, 2020
* denotes presenter

Presentations
Honors Contracts and Inclusion of Experiential Learning Within STEM Majors
Presenters: Dr. Ellen McWhorter, Megan Sheppard ’18, Alison Hanlon ’18
Description: This session will address the significant role that honors contracts play in current education and future career goals of students majoring in the sciences. In addition, we will measure the success of these projects and the potential for success using three distinct groups of students; freshmen, sophomores-seniors, and post-grads. This data will provide insights on how improvements can be made to the implementation of honors contracts by Honors Programs that will encourage participation by both STEM faculty and students.
Honors Students to Student Advice-ing
Presenters: Lisa Cavallaro and Courtney Carrozzo ’18
Description: Advice-ing is a new initiative which provides Honors underclassmen with the opportunity to gain advice and insight from Honors upperclassmen. Scheduled “advice-ing” sessions encourage students to ask questions they may not feel comfortable or ready to ask their academic advisors, and allow them to learn firsthand about the variety of college milestones (study abroad, internships, etc.) that our Honors students have recently achieved.
Honors Recruitment: We Want You!
Presenters: Lisa Cavallaro, Kerri McCarthy ’18 and Victoria Robbins ’18
Description: This session will discuss what Merrimack College Honors student leaders do to promote the honors program, and describe how we engage with potential students to showcase the program and all the benefits of being part of the community. We will show student-made recruiting videos and elaborate on the various marketing techniques and strategies used to attract soon-to-be college students.
The Over-engaged Honors Students
Presenters: Dr. Ellen McWhorter, Kerri McCarthy ’18, Tori Thistle ’18 and Alison Tobin ’18
Description: This session will focus on an issue that is prevalent in honors student temperament and academic life: being over-engaged. At times, students can feel overwhelmed and stressed out as they try to juggle school work, extracurricular activities, and social lives. We will provide a perspective on the topic as over-engaged students ourselves, and provide information about the ways in which we handle it. We will explore ways that the Merrimack College Honors Program helps students with this issue, and how these methods have proven successful using student conducted research. We will also discuss how enrichment opportunities unite students together into one community, a main pillar of our honors program.