By Collin Dever
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Members of the honors program traveled to Jacksonville to attend the Florida Collegiate Honors Conference, this past weekend. The two-day conference was filled with primarily student presentation on a wide variety topics of research.

The Honors students of 22 Florida colleges voted in Valencia student Anne Dowdell as the two-year community college representative for the 2011-12 year. Dowdell is the sole representative for all two-year institutions, and will have voting position on the executive board of the Florida Collegiate Honor Council (FCHC).

“I feel honored, I don’t know how else to say it,” said Dowdell. “It’s great to take input from other students and make sure their voices are heard.”

Valencia has held the the two-year representative spot for the last two years. Valencia Honors council President Steve Crist was last year’s FCHC representative. Having Valencia retain the position gives the school a lot of opportunity to influence the council according to Crist.

“It’s natural,” said Crist. “We have the largest delegation out of anybody.”

The FCHC held their executive board meeting at the conference, to discuss a location for next year’s conference, and to discuss the budget. “The student issue we came up with is finding corporate sponsors for scholarships,” said Dowdell.

Students shared independent research projects with their peers on topics of science, math, and the humanities. “I’d like to see more Valencia presenters in the future,” said Crist. No Valencia student presented at the FCHC.

The trip to the conference was organized through the Valencia Honors program. The conference is funded by the student activity budget for the students’ dues, as well as the FCHC contributing some funds for the conference.

Valerie Burkes is Director of Valencia’s honors program, and attended the FCHC conference. “I think for Ann to win the election this year really shows the prominence of Valencia in the statewide honors community,” said Burkes. “More importantly, it shows how important student opinion is to the program at Valencia.”

Burkes hoped the conference would helped the honors student share ideas to bring back and improve the honors program, here at Valencia.