First-year seminars in the Patrick Leahy Honors College
First-year Patrick Leahy Honors College students take two-courses, one in the fall (HCOL 1000) and one in the spring (HCOL 1500). Seminars during the fall semester engage with a wide variety of contemporary social and ecological challenges; all seminars share a focus on writing and information literacy. The spring semester seminars build on skills and knowledge formed in the fall and introduce students to collaborative group work and public speaking.
Through these first-year courses, students become well-acquainted with each other and the PLHC faculty. By living with fellow honors students and attending social hours and other events, they create together an exciting intellectual community.
Summer reading and writing
Every summer, incoming first-year students read a book that is distributed to the entire cohort and complete an essay that is due on the first day of their section of HCOL 1000 in the fall. While the various sections of HCOL 1000 differ in content, engaging with summer read is an experiences that all new PLHC students share.
Summer 2025 assignment
The Patrick Leahy Honors College is pleased to inform you about our 2025 selection for UVM’s Summer Reading Program: Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities.
You will be able to access free electronic copies of each of the chapters of this book through the UVM library. Please use this specific link.
This link requires that you login with your NetId to access the book chapters. If you haven’t set it up already, instructions for how to find your NetID and set its password can be found here.
Please read this book over the summer and then write a brief reflection essay on it before you come to campus. You will hand in this essay to your HCOL 1000 instructor on the first day of class. This draft of your essay will not be graded, but you will receive suggestions for revision, and you will then submit a revised version of your essay later in the semester for a letter grade.
Patrick Leahy Honors College Summer 2025 Essay Assignment
The essay question is as follows:
Martha Nussbaum wrote Not for Profit during a time of economic downturn when the Obama administration was predominantly emphasizing science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in its educational policies. As you begin your undergraduate education in a rather different historical context, we invite you to reflect on some of her arguments. What, if any, of the ideas Nussbaum presents in this book do you consider to be relevant to our current moment?
In this essay, we are looking for you to make an argument and support it based on a close reading of Not for Profit. You will bring this essay to the first day of your HCOL 1000 seminar. Your finished paper should be no more than about 750 words (two to three pages, double spaced). It should be titled and marked with page numbers. Please note that no outside research is expected for this assignment and the use of generative AI is not permitted.
While other Learning Communities will be discussing their summer read on Friday, August 22, as a part of the New Student Orientation, Patrick Leahy Honors College students will instead be discussing Not for Profit in their section of HCOL 1000 during the first week of classes. We will be hosting a welcome event for all new PLHC students on Friday the 22nd.
Common Hour
The entire first-year cohort has Wednesday evenings from 5:05 to 6:20 p.m. open on their schedules so that they can attend workshops and events related to academic advising and the first-year experience. This is additionally a time when Patrick Leahy Honors College students all know that they are available to study together or collaborate on group assignments.