Carrie Schwartz: The courage of curiosity

When upcoming University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire graduate Carrie Schwartz was asked about her time in the Mark Stephen Cosby Honors College, her review was part personal, part academic — but all rave.

“Honors at UW-Eau Claire is a mark of curiosity, which is like my two-bit saying that I tell everyone,” Schwartz says with a laugh. “It's just people who are really interested in learning and people who are really interested in making their college experience fruitful.”

When it comes to Schwartz’s college experience, “fruitful” might be too mild. The Appleton native has a full record of honors activities, academic achievements and professional accomplishments, one reflective not just of flourishing curiosities but also a courage that has helped her thrive — and helped her show others how to do the same.

Curios and community crossings

As she nears her spring 2026 graduation date, Schwartz’s degree plan reflects years of multifaceted curiosity. A communication major with a communication studies emphasis, music and multimedia communication minors and arts administration and American Sign Language certifications, Schwartz’s degree plan sparkles like a glass menagerie — each passion glistening next to another area of shining expertise.

“Multimedia communication and arts administration were both things that ended up pairing music and communication really nicely,” she explains. “Those were going to be skills that would be really marketable for my future.”

Aside from her academics, Schwartz has participated in a wide variety of on- and off-campus activities. The music and theatre arts department is no stranger to her, as a member of the Blugold Marching Band, orchestra and multiple main-stage theater productions. Schwartz’s passion for the arts also found a different kind of audience when she helped with the Midwest Artist Academy, a one-week summer program at UW-Eau Claire for high school students participating in visual art, dance, creative writing and other interdisciplinary arts.

That love of learning and outreach met many other times for Schwartz, too, primarily through UW-Eau Claire academic travel. This past January, for instance, Schwartz spent time in Thailand on the business and globalization international immersion program, visiting places like Wat Ron Khun, the White Temple, and Mae Fah Luang University. But Schwartz remembers most fondly the transformative journey she took last year on the Civil Rights Pilgrimage, traveling through Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee to study the history of the Civil Rights Movement and its echoes in the present.

“That's one of my favorite memories from college. I really encourage people to go if they haven't.”

Kinship and honors coursework

Schwartz speaks most glowingly of her time at UW-Eau Claire when she recollects her experiences in the Cosby Honors College. There she’s taken classes exploring niche subjects, developed her leadership skills and built relationships that will last a lifetime.

Among her most memorable honors experiences was a creative project born out of a sophomore-year honors course, “A Queer Lens.” Led by professor Ellen Mahaffy, Schwartz and her classmates spent a semester exploring queer theory and art, which culminated in a classwide exhibition over the next year.

A select group of students — Schwartz among them — curated, planned and publicized an exhibition featuring 13 artists from across the nation. One of the artists, New York-based Amaryllis R. Flowers, even conducted a workshop and artist talk for Schwartz and her peers on a Japanese pottery technique called Nerikomi. After, they followed Flowers into a room full of her work, lit only by the light of their cell phones.

“Hearing her talk about her art in the dark — and in that really intimate space — really made that project feel all worth it,” Schwartz reminisces. “It was such a great pinnacle of what our work had been leading towards in this moment, where people can connect over art in a really intimate way.”

Where courage meets curiosity

Schwartz is no stranger to the intimate work of connection. For the past two years, she has served as a resident assistant for the Honors Living Learning Community in Bridgman Hall, which provides first- and second-year honors students a chance to build community in and out of the classroom.

“The social aspect and the social part of college is really benefited by the honors program, and I see that in my residents in the LLC. (Honors) is this really soft place to land, where you’re still able to take risks that prepare you for a future where you're outside of college and you don't have that soft landing anymore.”

Honors at UW-Eau Claire, for both Schwartz and the students she mentors, has played a key part in cultivating that courage. And helping students blossom bravely into themselves has given Schwartz a new post-grad goal: to continue in residence life as a hall director.

“I like being able to facilitate students’ social learning and sense of belonging as they start sort of a new chapter of their lives,” she says. “Eau Claire really grew that affection in me, and I want to continue it somewhere else.”

Schwartz shares with her first-year residents the difficulties of transitioning into college; but she also shares with them how taking risks — to make a new friend, learn a new lesson or gain a new perspective — can transform them in academics and beyond.

“I'm proud of the fact that I look back on my own first and second year and recognize what I would have changed or how I would have handled things differently. How I study for tests and get my work turned in on time, but also how much I actually have to sleep to be a good student, and how to show up better for my friends.”

Failure as a mark of fearlessness, curiosity and growth: that’s an essential honors lesson Schwartz says she is “grateful for” — and one she promises to keep passing on to future residents.

Written by Cami Hoth, a second-year junior studying business communication and marketing at UW-Eau Claire. She is from Stewartville, Minnesota.