Several years ago the English department at King College (a liberal arts college in Bristol, Tennessee, with affiliation to the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church) experimented with a course in which fourthyear students, to fulfill a capstone requirement, were placed with first-year composition students. At the beginningof the term, the seniorstudents were to lead small groups in discussions on presentations by faculty members who visited the class. Later, the fourth-year students were responsible for sharing their own research. One of those presentations 1 recall mostvividly. A student majoring both in performing arts and in physics treated the class to a scholarly and enthusiastic report on fractals in painting. After class, 1 overheard an awe-struck first-year student remark, "I hope I'm that smartwhen I'm a senior."Although the course, sadly, wasdropped after a couple of years, the comment of that young student stuck with me. For one thing, it was delightfully un-selfconscious, cheerful, and appreciative. But in meditating on it further, 1 came to suspect something else. In its simplicity and directness it expressed something quite profound, the qualities-the "gifts," I would preferto call them, both given and received-that make education work: wonder and humility.Justas importantly, it seemed to me, these gifts had found expression in a context fraught with possibilities. The younger studentwasaccepting a gift the older student had given her and had discovered in it someaspirations of her own. Her comment hinted at the possibility of, perhaps even the longing for, a relationship on some level with her older classmate. I longed to see how the younger student would flourish if such a connection might be sustained.Thus, when subsequently asked to design and implement an honors program at KingCollege, 1found these ideas reemerging. The resulting program, centered as it was on an honors seminar each year, sought to foster the gifts of wonder and humility in the students who participated within a community that, although structured, allowed students somefreedom to shapeits course. The seminars, each of which focused on a single issue related to "cultural transformation in Christ," a phrase from King's mission statement, included large-group presentations by faculty members and outside speakers who represented a variety of disciplines and my conversations with individual students on their reflection papers (written in response to the presentations and posted readings) and on their research projects.In addition, small tutorial groups-comprised of students, from first year to fourth year, and led by a senior tutor-were organized. These tutors facilitated discussions on the presentations and the reflection papers of the underclassmen. As it turned out, the tutorials were one of the most critical features of the seminar. The tutors proved to be an invaluable asset, in part because of the assistance
