Lynn Herrmann is a Professor in the School of Health Studies in the College of Health and Human Sciences. Dr. Herrmann taught an honors seminar in the spring 2026 semester titled, “Startup Standup: A Steampunk Journey to Innovation”
- Why were you attracted to offering an honors seminar?
A few years ago, I helped out at an event called StartUp StandUp at 71 North Partnership Studio – NIU Office of Innovation. StartUp StandUp is a day-long event that involved an improv pitch competition, designed by Federico Bassetti, Russ Devereaux, and Anna Klis (who all happened to be guest speakers in this seminar course!). I have never seen students open up and have so much fun! We ran the event a few more times and decided to propose the day-long event as a semester-long honors seminar, to go into all the topics more deeply. So, I was drawn to the honors seminar because it provided the opportunity to turn this day-long event into a credit class.
2. How do you teach your subject or specialty to an interdisciplinary group of Honors students?
The good news is my seminar is based on an alternate reality: Steampunk. Even if a few students are really into steampunk, maybe they’ve never done a pitch competition before, or vice versa. The class involves teams working on pitches for steampunk clients so that naturally is helped by interdisciplinary perspectives.
3. What are some of your tricks of the trade to engage students in the course materials?
To better engage students, it’s all about taking the pressure off. We had five mini-pitches during the semester where students were not graded on their pitches. They were provided peer feedback (e.g., what was great, suggestion to try next time), but no grade. This allowed students to try out new improv techniques, test out a different voice, or try a different style of humor. If it didn’t work, there was no penalty. They could even try again for the next pitch. You have nothing to lose so why not try something different and learn from that experience?
4. What’s the best thing about teaching Honors students?
Everyone has such unique backgrounds and learning styles so I’ve enjoyed developing activities that utilize talents while allowing space to grow and develop abilities for which students once thought, “I can’t do that.” The students have really become more grounded and grown as the semester has gone on. I think this will be one of the most memorable college experiences the students have had at NIU.
