CMB Associate Professor Catherine Honig credits her students with giving her inspiration. "They come to us with a wonderful constellation of accomplishments," she explained in a recent interview with CAD Coordinator, Cynthia Watkins. Catherine believes that it is not only their experience that makes them remarkable, but the manner in which they conduct themselves every day at their jobs. Catherine says that she consistently sees students act with courage and conviction even when they face unpleasant outcomes. "If my students ride up and down the elevators in your organization every day, then I think you’re a pretty lucky outfit," she states. "I really wish the faculty, staff, and administration could know my students the way I’ve come to know them," she says, "the University would be proud."

     Her genuine appreciation of her management students’ experience is one of the reasons why students hold her in high esteem, but it is the way she compels them to go beyond the level of ordinary problem solving and break through to extraordinary critical thinking that distinguishes Catherine’s pedagogy. She now teaches exclusively online and says it was a bit of a surprise to find the online classroom can actually be "far superior" to the face to face environment. "Online learning greatly advances one’s ability to go in-depth" about a subject she explains. And the online forum causes students to sharpen and develop their writing and critical thinking skills. She acknowledges that coaching students is an important part of the process, but overall she finds that online students come to class well prepared.

     Known for a high standard of excellence and the distinctive quality she infuses into her work, Catherine also serves as the Assessment Coordinator for CMB. While at NLU, she has continuously and actively worked on numerous research projects. Her expertise in research lies in the areas of selection, training, and quantitative methods in the field of management. Her academic credentials include a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of South Florida and a Masters and Ph. D. in Industrial Psychology from Bowling Green State University. While a graduate assistant at Bowling Green, she won the Freeburne Award for outstanding graduate student instructor. And before coming to National-Louis she worked in market research management for a Fortune 500 company and joined NLU in 1990 as a full-time faculty member in CMB based in Florida.

     

"I tell all my online students they all have something important to say, but if we can’t read it we can’t hear that message."

Dr. Catherine Honig, Associate Professor, College of Management and Business

     Her advice to online students is to develop a lot of self-discipline, to be online every day, and to keep up with reading and assignments. "The other focus I really do place is on polishing writing skills. I tell all my online students they all have something important to say, but if we can’t read it we can’t hear that message." And developing critical thinking and writing skills is an essential aspect of all her courses as her students attest that she explicitly challenges them to sink their teeth into the real issues and stretch beyond their limits cognitively. "The whole area of critical thinking is important," she states. "Students are accustomed to taking true-false, multiple choice tests and looking for the right answer, but what’s more important is finding the right question," she concludes. And when she’s not coaching students to go more in-depth analytically, Catherine is often literally going the distance herself as she is a longtime runner in local Tampa Bay racing events. She ran the first Hops Marathon, has run the half marathon in the Disney Marathon, which attracts more than 30,000 runners, and is training and running on a continual basis in Florida races.