University Honors Journal gives students chance to express creativity

Although Wednesday was the last day the Student Honors program accepted entries for the University Art Journal, their work is far from over.

The University Honors Journal is a yearly publication sponsored by the Honors Department.

A six person staff, consisting of three honors students and three faculty members will vote to decide which pieces will be featured in the publication. The pieces will be given a numerical score based on artistic merit. The piece earning the highest total score will be placed on the front cover.

"The pieces they see will be anonymous so they won't know what artist's work they're looking at," Keri Berg, assistant professor of French, said.

Several different artistic mediums are accepted, including visual and digital art submissions. Written fiction, non-fiction, poetry and plays were also submitted.

When the journal was first published in May 2008, the staff consisted of four or five people. Twenty artists were featured in the 2008 issue, but the length of this year's issue depends on the quality of the submissions.

"If there are 10 great pieces, we'll feature 10 pieces," Berg said. "If there are 20 great ones, there will be 20 published."

The experience of working on such a project was enjoyable for Sean Kennedy, a sophomore communication major and member of the staff. "It's always a unique experience to be involved in something like this," he said. Berg said she is hopeful that the journal will be published in April. The former price, only three dollars may increase to around five dollars, because of the use of color on all pages,.

"We've had a great turnout this year," said Ashley Chase, a junior English major and member of the staff. "It's great to see students express their artistic creativity."