A Legacy of People: Meet the 2026 Honors 198 Facilitators

By Gary Hyatt, WSU Honors College, gary.hyatt1@wsu.edu

For more than 60 years, The Honors College has entrusted students with an important leadership role: welcoming, encouraging and helping guide the next generation of Honors Cougs.

Each fall, that tradition continues through HONORS 198: Honors First-Year Experience, a one-credit course designed to help incoming students find their footing and begin building their WSU experience. What makes the course especially unique is that it is led by Honors students who have recently experienced that same transition themselves.

Dean M. Grant Norton believes that peer leadership brings an important perspective to the classroom. “The facilitators remember what it feels like to be new, making them more approachable than faculty,” Norton said. “They also build social connections with the first-year students, giving them an important resource on campus.”

Those connections can make a difference during the first few months of college. Facilitators can answer the questions that may feel too small to ask a professor, share their own experiences and help first-year students discover the clubs, programs, research opportunities and other experiences available to them through WSU and the Honors College.

The role is also an opportunity for the facilitators to grow as leaders. They are not simply sharing what they have learned. They are learning how to mentor, communicate and lead a classroom of their peers.

“While there are benefits for the first-year students to be part of Hon 198, the facilitators themselves gain valuable leadership, communication, and mentoring skills, which look great on a resume,” Norton said.

This year’s HONORS 198 Facilitators are Taylor Babb, Aarya Bajaj, Lily Becker, Parker Casey, Maura Castillo, Nicole Diefenbach, Audrey Elliot, Michael Fasci, Dylan Gray, Oliver Hart, Alice Higgins, Ethan Irish, Macie Koval, Tiana LaFollette, Rowan Manwaring, Taylor Page, Ani Rice, Katy Touretsky, Anita Valdez and Ari Wilson.

They join generations of Honors students who have stepped into this role, continuing a tradition that is bigger than a one-credit course. It is about students helping students feel connected, confident and ready to make WSU their own.