News

Students from the W.A. Franke Honors College will be collaborating with Tucson’s annual Agave Heritage Festival (AHF) to host an Agave Knowledge Exchange exhibition on April 20th in downtown Tucson. The Agave Heritage Festival is a four-day celebration that focuses on the agave plant and its cultural significance across borders.

The weather brought John Pollard to Tucson, but the University of Arizona's culture and research opportunities have kept him here. In this Meet the Dean feature, learn about Dean Pollard's vision for the W.A. Franke Honors College, as well as his love for music and barbecue.

The University of Arizona's W.A. Franke Honors College recently sponsored a student designed seminar hosted in Sonora, Mexico, in which Franke Honors students in HNRS 295G: Global Diversity & Voices were able to plan, organize, and put on a seminar that promoted a topic of their choosing. The course culminated in a seminar to showcase learning with a partner university in Sonora, The Instituto Tecnológico Superior de Cananea.

Daryl Ijaola is a sophomore at the W.A. Franke Honors College studying Biomedical Engineering with minors in Health and Human Values and Spanish. Ijaola, who is also a Black Excellence Scholar, has a passion for expressing his thoughts and emotions through poetry and spoken word. Using the resources from his Exploratory Mini-Grant, Ijaola is cultivating a dedicated space for students to explore writing poetry through weekly workshops hosted in the University of Arizona Main Library.

W.A. Franke Honors Assistant Professor of Practice Dr. Nadia Alvarez Mexia, along with staff members Kat Reising and Tere Weiler, recently secured a $1,500 Grant from Confluencenter Director's Fund. Their proposal, which is titled "Bridging Borders: Honoring Interdisciplinary Student Talent," aims to empower Franke Honors students in the Arts and Humanities by providing platforms such as workshops, exhibitions, performances, and diverse events for showcasing their work, skills, and ideas.

This Women's History Month, we celebrate the invaluable contributions of women throughout history, recognizing their achievements, and honoring their resilience. Within the W.A. Franke Honors College, we are privileged to have outstanding women scholars and leaders who contribute immensely to our campus community and beyond!

This spring, Franke Honors students will have the chance to learn from and work alongside industry partners Creative Machines and Core Spaces. This incredible opportunity is a central part of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation curriculum, a new future-facing, dual degree program offered at the W.A. Franke Honors College.

Trevor Hedberg researches and teaches about issues in moral philosophy. His research about environmental and procreative ethics was recently published on the Conversation, an independent news organization that publishes trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts.

Mark and Mindy Zeitzer both earned undergraduate degrees with Honors from the University of Arizona, and both have gone on to careers marked by impressive professional accomplishments in health care as well as profound commitments to the communities they serve.

Franke Honors Junior Esha Mathur has been collaborating with the Pascua Yaqui tribe in Tucson, working to establish workshops for middle and high school students that provide learning opportunities centered around Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Arts (STEAM).