From left to right: Dean Vimala Pasupathi and Dean Tomeka Robinson

Photos courtesy of Vimala Pasupathi and Dr. Tomeka Robinson

For the past five years, HUHC has been led by Dean Warren Frisina, Assistant Dean Lauren Burignat-Kozol and Associate Dean Vimala Pasupathi. In June, Dean Pasupathi plans on stepping down from her position and returning to the English department as a full-time professor.

The Hofstra University Honors College (HUHC) is a multidisciplinary program that provides students with opportunities to participate in open discussions with peers and faculty, both in honors college seminars and in a semester-long course titled Culture and Expression (C&E); C&E explores topics from the ancient and contemporary eras. HUHC students can also take more rigorous iterations of their normal coursework.

Through its diverse staff and student body, HUHC encourages all participants to look inward and share their experiences and knowledge with each other.

“Being able to teach in Culture and Expression has ensured that I get to work with colleagues in social science departments … colleagues I don’t actually ever get to talk to about their teaching, about their fields of scholarship,” Pasupathi said. Planning various HUHC courses and speaking with her fellow professors and students has allowed Pasupathi to expand the scope of her interactions on campus.

HUHC continually brings in new perspectives and expertise on various areas of interest. During Pasupathi’s tenure with the honors college, she taught seminars including Finance in Film, Nonfiction and Italian Comic Books and C&E, which explored themes such as “Crisis and Response” and “What’s Happening To Our Democracy.” These varied offerings ensure that professors with different areas of interest teach C&E every semester, so that “it’s just not always the same people. Adding new people who haven’t taught for us before is always, I think, a good positive step,” Pasupathi said.

Another benefit that HUHC brings to its participants is a safe and open space to discuss contemporary themes within a historical context. Pasupathi encourages students to grow their confidence through the conversations they have in the classroom. In her own words, “C&E is at least sort of a level playing field where you’re just in a class with … almost entirely first-year students who are new as well. And everybody’s just sort of feeling out their way of being a college student. And I do think it gives people a sort of confidence over time.” Pasupathi explained that although it may be subconsciously, students end up using the habits C&E taught them later on in their academic career, regardless of what the subject matter may have been.

“There have been many things that I really loved studying, because a lot of it isn’t in my specific research area and it tends to be stuff I probably wouldn’t have read without somebody pointing it out to me,” Pasupathi said, reflecting on her time in HUHC. Outside of class, Pasupathi has organized an event examining special collections documents at Hofstra about African Americans on Long Island and takes students to various sporting events and museums in the area.

Dr. Tomeka Robinson, professor of rhetoric and public advocacy and director of forensics at Hofstra, will take over Pasupathi’s role as Associate Dean.

Robinson studied biology and speech communication at the undergraduate level, health communication for her master’s degree and health education for her doctorate. Her academic fields fall in line with HUHC’s values of interdisciplinary studies. Her background also includes leading the debate team on campus.

“[Robinson] can continue that work to help students really develop their voice. And I think it’s probably not [a] full coincidence that the debate team also has a lot of students of color involved in it,” Pasupathi said, in celebration of her colleague. “Dr. Robinson is committed to improving the experience for students of color and faculty of color. She’s been involved in a lot of different initiatives among the faculty to both support students and also to support fields of study that look at different kinds of minority communities. I think that’s a really important element that she brings,” she continued.

Part of the value of HUHC is that it encourages faculty and students to bring their unique experiences to the larger community. “Talking about some of the ancient African and Asian texts that we may not always think about, I think will be an interesting and new challenge and a different way of approaching some of the same ideas that we’ve thought about,” Robinson said.

Robinson looks forward to encouraging members of the honors college to navigate their differences. “We have to actually understand where everybody’s coming from … I think that it’s something that can help shape some of our understandings a little bit more,” Robinson said, explaining how this can be accomplished. Although she usually examines modern texts, she hopes that diving deeper into unfamiliar subject areas will help foster stronger connections between members of the HUHC community.

“[I am] looking forward to working with Dean Frisina and Dean Burignat-Kozol because they also bring very different perspectives,” Robinson said, highlighting their differences that not only inspire but challenge her. “I think that there is a lot of opportunity for some great synergy to happen and for us to really push each other to be as good as we possibly can be.”

Robinson ultimately views her upcoming role as “blending things and inviting more people to our team.” In the upcoming academic year, Robinson plans to encourage greater diversity in the honors college curriculum, faculty and students and build on the foundations that Pasupathi built in her time with HUHC.

“The more people we have on our teaching team, the better perspectives that our students get, and the more interesting things that we can provide from a curriculum standpoint” Robinson said.