Catherine Gooding will spend her AmeriCorps service year as an Honors College Diversity VISTA, working to both broaden the reach of the Honors College and to improve the Honors student experience for underrepresented students once they are enrolled at WVU.
“I see my job as two-fold: one to assess where we are — what are underrepresented students’ experiences like now and what’s the data on our enrollment, and then two to build the infrastructure to support student success and to make the Honors College a place that’s welcoming and where students can thrive,” Gooding said.
The Honors College is working with the College of Education and Human Services to host focus groups and hear directly from underrepresented students about their experiences.
“We want to answer questions like: What is our culture like within the Honors College, and how do students perceive us? How do they experience their time in the Honors College?” Gooding said. “If we want to learn about student experiences, we need to really listen to what those experiences are by speaking with the students themselves.”
For the Honors College, Gooding’s work will help amplify and solidify the college’s efforts to recruit and support underrepresented students.
Last year, the Honors College launched the Honors Students of Color Affinity Group and Honors LGBTQ+ and Allies Affinity Group as spaces for students to build community, share their experiences and bond with their peers.
Now, Gooding says one of her first goals is to continue to build on-campus connections.
“A big part of fostering student success is connecting students to the resources that are available to them,” Gooding said. She plans to continue to strengthen ties by working with the Division for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the LGBTQ+ Center, the Center for Black Culture and Research and the Carruth Center, among others.
As Gooding explains, the goal of the AmeriCorps VISTA program is to help build an organization’s capacity, improving programs and access.
“I’m working to broaden the reach of education through the Honors College and to make it so students who come to the Honors College are able to get as much of the experience as they can,” Gooding said.
Gooding said some other initiatives she will be pursuing during her service year include the development of community-building initiatives to engage and support underrepresented students and the re-examination of Honors course development guidelines to help ensure courses are representative of diverse voices and perspectives.
The Honors College will also pilot a test-optional admissions pathway for Fall 2021 admission, to be launched this fall.
“The Honors College is committed to our mission of enhancing the undergraduate experience and building a diverse and inclusive community of scholars here at West Virginia University. We look forward to seeing the impacts of Gooding’s work for our students and community,” said Ken Blemings, dean of the Honors College.
Gooding is excited to be able to devote herself to working full-time to the development of strong goals and concrete next steps.
“We want to make the Honors College a strong learning experience for everyone who joins our programs or takes our courses,” Gooding said.
Prior to taking on this role, Gooding completed a service year from 2019-20 as an AmeriCorps VISTA with the Honors Experimental and Community Engaged Learning Program. Gooding graduated from Wellesley College with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology in 2019 and is happy to have returned home to the West Virginia mountains.
Gooding encourages students to contact her with thoughts or experiences they wish to share at Catherine.Gooding@mail.wvu.edu.
Honors students interested in joining the Honors Students of Color Affinity Group can contact Javier McCoy at Javier.Mccoy@mail.wvu.edu.
Honors students interested in joining the Honors LGBTQ+ Affinity Group can contact Kevin Gooding at Kevin.Gooding@mail.wvu.edu.