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Exploring the Benton Scholars Program

Pre-orientation

Benton Scholars are invited to campus for a special pre-orientation program that includes team building and other activities that introduce the program's themes and goals.

First Year

The first year is the time for the Benton Scholars to become immersed in the Colgate experience--taking core courses, developing networks of friends, and considering the contributions they will make as campus leaders. Scholars will live together in a community located in one of the residence halls. During both the fall and spring semesters, they will take one required class together as a group. In the fall, their First-Year Seminar will be "Global Perspectives on Emerging Issues," with Professor Tim Byrnes, program adviser and political science professor. In the spring term, they will take another course together (to be determined) that is required as part of Colgate's Core Curriculum.

During the first year, Benton Scholars will help choose visiting speakers. They also will travel together to meet with renowned leaders including Dan Benton '80, the program's founder.

Sophomore Year

During the sophomore year, Benton Scholars are challenged to recognize and explore the connections between global issues and the local community where they live and work. Colgate is widely recognized for its leadership in sophomore-year education, and Benton Scholars will participate fully in Colgate's Sophomore-Year Experience programming. Many activities channeled through Colgate's Upstate Institute, an interdisciplinary initiative that connects service and scholarship in an effort to address the social concerns of Central New York. In the past, sophomore Benton Scholars have formed a Student Philanthropy Council that awarded small grants to community organizations, both locally and abroad, organized on-campus discussions of various global issues and challenges, and met and talked with prominent leaders like Colin Powell and Tony Blair when they visited Colgate's campus as part of the Global Leaders Lecture Series. Also, in the spring semester of the sophomore year, Benton Scholars host a Global Challenges Symposium, featuring a public talk on a global theme of the scholars' choice by an invited guest as well as the scholars' own presentations connecting the theme with their chosen fields of concentration at Colgate.

Junior Year

This is the time for Benton Scholars to take the knowledge and skills they have developed in the first two years of the program and apply them to real-world issues and challenges. Scholars will identify a theme that they will study during a trip to an off-campus study site of their choosing. Colgate has a robust offering of off-campus student programs that send students on faculty-led, full semester trips to destinations from London and Geneva to China and Australia. Scholars who choose to participate in non-Colgate programs may do so with university approval. Juniors also become engaged in mentoring relationships as they will be connected with Colgate alumni and incoming Benton Scholars, providing them with the opportunity to be mentored and act as mentors themselves.

Senior Year

The capstone year in the program, this is the time for scholars to draw together their experiences from the program and envision how they seek to apply them to their lives beyond Colgate. They will continue their mentoring "up" and "down" relationships as they take a senior seminar with the faculty member who taught their first-year seminar, emphasizing the themes of the program once again, and reviewing how those themes emerged over their four years at Colgate. They will also give public presentations articulating the impact of their experience to other members of the Colgate community, encapsulating the whole experience, and showing the ways in which they have developed as leaders with global perspectives.