Kirstin Erickson
Kirstin Erickson, associate professor, anthropology, Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences. During
Kirstin Erickson’s tenure as director of the Fulbright Honors Program, the number
of students graduating with honors distinction increased from 155 (in 2017-18), to
200 honors graduates (in 2021). Through semi-annual mass thesis meetings and the establishment
of a "sophomore milestone" marker, study abroad help sessions, new student orientation,
and one-on-one conversations with students, she was able to advise honors scholars
on everything from committee composition and research protocols to international research,
fellowship applications and post-graduate plans. She increased the size of the Fulbright
College Honors Council and organized faculty workshops on the honors thesis process
and policy. To better support junior faculty and first-time thesis directors, she
initiated a faculty mentoring program that pairs first-time faculty directors with
seasoned Honors Council members.
Since 2017 she has led the beloved Honors Humanities Program (H2P), overseeing recruitment, retention and support of three extraordinary faculty teams, as well as promoting the program to incoming students. She has also worked closely with Fulbright College’s Sturgis Fellowship and grants program. Finally, on the brink of the COVID-19 outbreak in the spring of 2020, she led the Fulbright Honors team in heroically shifting the entire system of thesis defenses from a traditional face-to-face committee format to an online platform, providing the honors students (and their faculty mentors and committees) the guidance, back-up and reassurance they needed to follow through on their plans and preparations for a successful defense.