After six years as Director of University Honors, Dr. Stephan Blatti recently announced that he will step down at the end of this academic year. Dr. Blatti fearlessly captained the UH ship through a highly innovative update to the curriculum, the construction and move into Heritage Community, and a global pandemic. Under Blatti’s leadership, UH has grown from a time in 2019 when he was the program’s sole employee to a dedicated team of more than 20 full-time faculty and staff. From teaching in one of the original thematic clusters, to the inauguration of the Maryland Honors in Oxford track at his alma mater, to his much-anticipated Breakfasts with Blatti, it is fair to say that Dr. Blatti will leave a lasting legacy in the program he helped to reimagine.
Before he decamps for his next adventure in New England, the UH Student Board sat down with Dr. Blatti to talk about his time at UH and his hopes for the future of the program. Enjoy their conversation below, and make sure to stop by his office before the end of the semester to wish Dr. Blatti a fond “See you later!”
What brought you to University Honors?
I came to UMD in 2017 after nearly a decade at the University of Memphis where I’d been an Associate Professor of Philosophy. At Memphis I had been moving into administrative roles, serving as director of the humanities center and later as chair of the Philosophy Department. I care a great deal about public higher education, and I especially enjoy teaching honors students. So, when our family decided to relocate to Maryland, I was immediately drawn to UMD, in general, and to the Honors College, in particular, which was then searching for an Associate Director to work closely with University Honors. That was eight years ago, almost to the day.
What was the most rewarding experience that UH gave you and how will you carry that into your future endeavors?
Far too many rewarding experiences to pick just one! But if I had to pick one, it would be … everything.
Here’s what I mean. Shortly before I came to Maryland in 2017, a strategic visioning committee had completed a study of the Honors College. Included in the final report was a recommendation to reimagine University Honors. So I joined then Executive Director, Sue Dwyer, in developing a plan to transform just about everything about UH, from its curriculum and its staffing model to its residential home and relationship with the College. For nearly two years, we worked with UH students and university leadership in refining that plan. By the spring of 2019, we’d secured the requisite approvals from across campus, and the “new UH” was officially under construction. I say that my most rewarding experience in UH has been everything because we’ve been hard at work ever since in trying to realize that plan and because it has been so rewarding to witness the impact of this work for hundreds and hundreds of UH students. And I emphasize the “we” because it’s the deep sense of gratitude that I feel toward the many, many faculty, staff, and student leaders who have devoted so much time and energy into launching the “new UH” that I will cherish long after I leave.
What is the biggest challenge you faced during your time in UH, and what did you learn from it?
The transition from “old UH” to “new UH” was long and bumpy. The first cohort of students to join the “new UH” arrived in Fall 2020. As if launching a new living-learning program wasn’t challenging enough, we did so in the teeth of COVID-19, in the midst of a nationwide racial reckoning, and whilst actively supporting “old UH” students still working to complete the existing curriculum (which itself needed to be wound down as the new one ramped up). Complicating things further was the ongoing construction of Heritage Community, with first-year students split between Pyon-Chen and Hagerstown Halls in 2021-22. Not until Johnson-Whittle and the UH Commons (Yahentamitsi Hall) opened in Fall 2022 did it begin to feel like the vision for the “new UH” was realized. Except that, in many ways, we’d only just arrived at the starting line: because even with the restructured curriculum, a full team of faculty and staff, and the new buildings all in place, we hadn’t even begun, really, to build the culture of the new program. Which brings me to the lesson that I take from these years: meaningful change takes much time and care.
What piece of advice do you have for UH students?
My advice is encapsulated in a phrase that, by now, students will be tired of hearing me say, viz. “epistemic humility,” which means modesty with respect to what you think you know and a willingness to acknowledge all that you don’t know. As the opposite of intellectual arrogance, epistemic humility is the sort of virtue that isn’t much celebrated or prized these days. But it’s vital that students cultivate this disposition. Here is just one reason among many: a lot of what you don’t yet know has to do with yourself. For the overwhelming majority of you, the tape at the finish line that you envision as a first-semester freshman will not be the same as the tape you’ll break a few years later at graduation. Along the way, you’ll drop your initial major in favor of a different one. Or you’ll keep your initial major, but add a second one. You’ll pick up a minor, or a certificate, or both. You’ll attempt things and fail. You’ll try other things and flourish. You’ll fall in and out of love. You’ll develop passions you could hardly have fathomed when you began. You’ll take a course, or study abroad, or complete an internship that changes your life. There’s so much you don’t know about what you believe and who you are that it would be utterly foolish to pretend otherwise. So why on earth would you be rigid about anything? Instead, be open to unfamiliar ideas and experiences. Whether personally or intellectually, don’t be closed off or arrogant. Be epistemically humble!
What do you hope for UH’s future?
I often think about something that a former student said about UH. Sasha Kahn was an “old UH” student on whom I relied for counsel as we developed and began to implement our plan for the “new UH.” For his many contributions to the program, we recognized Sasha with an award just before he graduated in Spring 2020. The award was accompanied by an invitation to give a brief address to UH students. Because the pandemic prevented us from in-person gatherings, Sasha elected to record a video that could be shared with all UH students; it’s still available online here. Being a Government & Politics and Architecture double-major, Sasha spends much of the video drawing a picture of Hagerstown Hall while he shares a story from his first year in UH. Along the way, he makes the following observation which has stuck with me all these years:
University Honors is a huge program—it’s thousands of people. And sometimes it struggles to find a unifying identity. And, you know, I think that’s kind of a good thing. We aren’t all a single living-learning community in the way that some of the other smaller ones are. We are many living-learning communities under one name. We’re lounge friends and roommates and study groups that divide and reform when we need to. And in times like these, when distancing and isolation are the only things we know, those communities become more important than ever. We are all in this together—as University Honors, as the Honors College, and as Maryland.
-Sasha Kahn, ’20
I couldn’t agree more, and from the “old UH” through the “new UH,” that’s always been true. It seems fitting, therefore, that Sasha’s drawing of Hagerstown hangs today in the main office of the UH Commons—in a building, that is, that was barely under construction at the time he graduated. Because it’s never really been about “old UH” or “new UH.” Our one UH has been many UHs all the way along.
So as I depart and as new leadership steps in (watch this space for news!), let me first register what a privilege it has been to work alongside you these past few years. My sincere hope is that students, faculty, and staff will continue to push the program to evolve in ways that support and educate the many communities University Honors serves, because it’s in that innovation, co-creation, and multiplicity that UH’s identity consists.