Self-Designed Honors Experience Proposal

1. Provide a detailed abstract of your proposed honors experiential learning project. Special Olympics is a sports organization for mentally and physically handicapped children and adults that provides year-round training and competitions to more than four million athletes in 170 countries. Special Olympics was founded in 1968 by Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Although the Special Olympics World Games may be the most famous of Special Olympics competitions, Special Olympics competitions are held every day, all over the world. Some are even held in my hometown and current city of Cincinnati, Ohio. Special Olympics events in Cincinnati are organized by Hamilton County Special Olympics. I seek to get in touch with Hamilton County Special Olympics and either organize an event myself, or enlist the help of myself and the rest of my fraternity, Sigma Tau Gamma, for the purpose of making one of the already scheduled Special Olympics events as successful as it can be. This project would be personally meaningful to me because I want to get more involved in my community and make a positive impact on the lives of others. During my high school years, I didnt do much community service or philanthropy work. I want to try to make up for this now by helping out through the Special Olympics. One possible thing that my fraternity can do to help fund the event is hold a fundraiser. During the winter months, my fraternity can sell hot chocolate, coffee, and chocolate chip cookies. The money that we earn can be put aside and used later to buy supplies for the event such as food, water, t-shirts, etc. Before I start organizing the event though, I would need to get in touch with Hamilton County Special Olympics and set up a time to meet with one of their representatives. That way, I can get to know the people with whom I will be working with over the next couple of months. I would need to find a place that the event can be held and obtain permission to use the place for the event. I would most likely need a city permit to hold the event as well. Another way that my fraternity can help out is by getting the word out to others about the event. We could print out flyers and distribute them around campus. We could take out an ad in the newspaper and even get local news stations to publicize the event for us. By doing this, not only will more Special Olympics athletes know about the event, but also more people who would want to volunteer to help at the event will know as well. Planning out the details of this event such as time, date, and location will most likely take hours to get everything sorted out. Figuring out how to raise money for the event and the best way to spend the money on the event will take even more time. Getting the word out by printing out flyers and hanging them up and getting in touch with local newspapers and news stations will add even more additional time to the workload. Finally, with the time spent setting up the event and the time that it takes from the beginning to the end of the event, Im probably looking at roughly 70 hours of work. 2. Connection to Learning Outcomes within the Honors Thematic Area (identified above) Possesses awareness of purpose of service, including need for reciprocity, understanding of social issues, and ability to see those issues from multiple perspectives.

By interacting with Special Olympics athletes, I will better understand the need to help out those people who are less fortunate than you in the community. By interacting with the people who organize Special Olympic events, I hope to gain a better understanding of why they do what they do. By spearheading the event, I will learn about the time, effort, and money that goes into organizing Special Olympics events. Hopefully, I will learn something from the Special Olympics athletes and organizers. Participates in community and understands own role as citizen of community. By organizing a Special Olympics event, I would most certainly be participating in the community. I would also be fulfilling my duty as a community citizen by helping out those less fortunate in the community. 3. Connection to Goals and Academic Theories (include reference list, as appropriate) A. This project is related to my personal development because I believe that by organizing a Special Olympics event I will be doing my part as a community citizen. I believe that I will be having a positive impact on the community and on the lives of the Special Olympics athletes. I believe that I will be growing into a better person (someone who is more open to helping others and taking a more active role in the community). The project is also related to my academic development because I need thirty hours of community service to be eligible to keep my Cincinnatus Scholarship. If I dont keep my Cincinnatus Scholarship, it will be extremely hard for me to continue to pay for college. Also, community service and engagement looks extremely good on a job resume, so this will improve my chances of getting a job. B. One course that has prepared me for this project is Gateway to University Honors. In this class, I have learned about the four different thematic areas of University Honors, which include the Community Engagement Theme. I have learned that community engagement is more than just volunteering your time for a few hours here and there. I learned that it is more than doing service that makes you feel good and deeper than only addressing surfacelevel community challenges. This is why I want to invest a large amount of my time into organizing this Special Olympics event so that I will better understand what it means to be truly involved in helping and improving the community. Another thing that has prepared me for this project is my Sigma Tau Gamma book. Inside the book, it describes the various reasons why the brothers of Sigma Tau Gamma strive to help and improve the community. 4. Initiative, Independence, and/or Creativity By being in charge of organizing this event, I would be providing a very unique contribution to the project. Although I would be getting occasional help from Hamilton County Special Olympics and the other members of Sigma Tau Gamma, one could argue that the project would be nearly all, if not all, my own work. Although I have never organized an event like this before, I have demonstrated initiative by accepting the title of Special Olympics Chairman of my fraternity. I am fully in charge of all of the Special

Olympics business of Sigma Tau Gamma. Therefore, my involvement would be unique compared to the other members of Sigma Tau Gamma. 5. Reflection In order to properly reflect on my project, I will keep a careful log of the time and money that I spend and the experiences that I undergo while carrying out the project. I will use this data to write a reflective essay on my project after it is completed. 6. Dissemination After the project is completed, I can share the story of my project with the UC website and also with UC Greek Life. Hopefully I can inspire other people, fraternities, and sororities to get involved in projects like mine. I can also display pictures and a story of my project on the Sigma Tau Gamma website so that other Sigma Tau Gamma members know about what the UC branch did to help their community. 7. Project Advisor (list the persons name, title, and contact information) I dont have a project advisor yet but I could possibly contact either the head of Community Service at UC or the head of UC Greek Life. Leah Howell leah.howell@uc.edu