The South Carolina Honors College course, U.S. Constitution: Why and How It Was Created, How It Has Survived, and How It Impacts America is not your average history class. Taught by Joel Collins, a lawyer, and co-founder of Collins and Lacy law firm in Columbia, this course takes students on a journey detailing the ins and outs of the Constitution.
Collins is a Constitutional expert, and he expects a great deal from his students. He wants them to be knowledgeable about the contents of the Constitution, the lives of the people who wrote it and the events that inspired its creation. Most of all, he hopes that his students will share in his appreciation of the Constitution.
"I tell them I want them to have an affection – a love even – for the Constitution. I tell them to fall in love with the Constitution. After all, it's the oldest written Constitution for any nation on earth," Collins said.
"I tell them I want them to have an affection – a love even – for the Constitution. I tell them to fall in love with the Constitution. After all, it's the oldest written Constitution for any nation on earth," Collins said.
Since he started teaching this course more than thirteen years ago, Collins says that he has progressively made the course more difficult. He requires his student to practice their public speaking through oral book reports and expand their vocabulary by compiling a dictionary of unfamiliar terms. He also ties in current Supreme Court cases to show students how the Constitution is still relevant to today's society.
Though his course can be challenging, his students enjoy it.
"You get to learn every single aspect about the Constitution to the point where it becomes more of a story," said Callie Hribar, a freshman in the class. "Professor Collins just cares so much about the topic and he's so knowledgeable about the topic that it's impossible not to get hooked on it."
The size of this class also sets it apart from a typical college course.
"We literally sit in a conference room – it's just ten students and our professor," she said. "It's a lot more personal and a lot easier to connect with our professor and with the material and have in-depth discussion-based content which makes it a lot more interesting and a lot more valuable, I think, than some other lecture-based courses."
Near the end of the semester, the students take a day trip to Philadelphia, the highlight of the semester. There, they visit places like Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell Center, National Constitution Center, culminating a semester’s worth of learning with a trip they will never forget.
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