The annual composite MBA rankings compiled by John A. Byrne at Poets & Quants combines rankings from the “five most influential rankings and weighs each of them by the soundness of their methodologies” in order to yield “a more credible list of the best MBA programs.”
We like Poets & Quants and Byrne’s rankings and try to write about them each year. The rankings from which he combines the comprehensive list are those from U.S. News, Forbes, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and the Economist.
Here are the public MBA programs listed in the top 50 for 2015, and their composite rank:
“I have lived the immigrant experience.” Brenda Ramirez.
Ramirez was born in Mexico and immigrated to the United States as a child, gaining U.S. citizenship in 2012.
Ramirez, of Romeoville, Illinois, is a senior in the College of Liberal Arts and Honors College majoring in law and society and corporate communication. After she graduates she plans to study refugees and migration from a global perspective. She is planning a future in law and public policy with the goal of improving how immigrant populations are supplied with needed services and resources.
“I have lived the immigrant experience, and it is imperative for me to give a voice to others like me,” she said.
“We are thrilled for Brenda. She was one of the Honors College’s first mentors, lending peer support and guidance to others,” said Rhonda Phillips, dean of the Honors College. “Brenda exemplifies what we strive to help our students develop – leadership skills, interdisciplinary knowledge, and a commitment to global and community engagement.”
“Brenda is an outstanding liberal arts student who leads by example in the classroom on campus and beyond,” said David Reingold, the Justin S. Morrill Dean of Liberal Arts. “She represents the very best at Purdue University and her passion for addressing global issues is powerful and her determination to succeed and help others is inspiring.”
NISO develops student-scholars’ skills as they prepare their applications for Purdue’s nominations for prestigious awards. The office also guides students through their applications with info sessions, writing workshops, one-on-one meetings, mock interviews and all the details of scholarship competitions.
Source: Rosanne Altstatt, Purdue National and International Scholarships Office, altstatt@purdue.edu
Is it actually worth it, in terms of quality classroom learning, to land a place at an elite college or university? This is a question that many families with highly-talented students ask themselves. If their answer is yes, the result is likely to be a concerted, frenzied effort to mold the students in a way that gives them at least a modest chance of admission to such schools. (Of course, for better or worse, the question is often framed as “Is it worth it, in terms of career success, to land a place…”).
Regarding the differences in the quality of classes among all levels of institutions, new research provides some insights. The researchers lean toward minimizing the relationship between academic prestige and quality of instruction–but it appears that some of their own research suggests just the opposite.
In an article titled Are Elite College Courses Better?, Doug Lederman, editor and co-founder of Inside Higher Ed, provides an excellent, mostly neutral summary of the recent research that suggests course quality in a relatively broad range of institutions does not vary as much as the prestige of a given school might suggest.
“Researchers at Teachers College of Columbia University and at Yeshiva University… believe they are developing a legitimate way to compare the educational quality of courses across institutions,” Lederman writes, “and their initial analysis, they say, ‘raises questions about the value of higher-prestige institutions in terms of their teaching quality.'”
The researchers suggest that the drive to enhance prestige based on rankings and selectivity have led to “signaling”–branding, perceptions–that are increasingly divorced from the actual quality of classroom instruction. The laudable aim of the researchers is to turn the conversation away from college rankings and the metrics that drive them, and toward measurements of effective, challenging instruction.
Trained faculty observers visited nine colleges and 600 classes. Three of the nine had high prestige; two had minimum prestige; and four had low prestige. The schools were both public and private, with differing research and teaching emphases. We should note that there was no list of which schools were in each category, so we do not know exactly how the researchers defined “elite.” It appears likely, however, that many leading public research universities would be considered elite.
“Teaching quality was defined as instruction that displayed the instructor’s subject matter knowledge, drew out students’ prior knowledge and prodded students to wrestle with new ideas, while academic rigor was judged on the ‘cognitive complexity’ and the ‘level of standards and expectations’ of the course work,” Lederman writes.
“But they found that on only one of the five measures, cognitive complexity of the course work, did the elite colleges in the study outperform the non-elite institutions.”
First, we note that highly-qualified honors students at almost all colleges, including many less prestigious public universities, are far more likely to encounter more “cognitive complexity” in their honors courses. Whether this results from having more depth or breadth in actual assignments, from taking harder courses early on, or from engaging in more challenging interactions with similarly smart students and the best faculty, the learning experience in honors embraces complexity.
We also have to agree with one of the longest and most thoughtful comments posted on Lederman’s article, by one “catorenasci”:
“Well, is [more cognitive complexity] a surprise to anyone? After all…on average the students at elite colleges and universities (private or public) have demonstrated higher cognitive ability than the students at less prestigious colleges and universities. Which means that the faculty can teach at a level of greater cognitive complexity without losing (many) students.”
The full comment from “catorenasci” also seems to be on the mark when it comes to improved instruction in all other measured areas on the part of colleges with less prestige, regardless of honors affiliation.
“As for the level of ‘teaching quality’ based on faculty knowledge, given the job market today, it should hardly be surprising that it has equaled out since there are many top quality candidates for even less prestigious positions and overall, I would suspect that the ‘quality’ of the PhD’s of faculty at less elite schools is much closer to that of elite schools than it was during the ’50s and ’60s when higher education was expanding rapidly and jobs were plentiful.
“The transformational aspect should not be surprising either: assuming faculty are competent and dedicated, with less able students they will work harder to draw out what they know and build on it. And, it will be more likely that students will experience significant growth as the faculty do this.”
The annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings have had the strongest presence in the ranking “world” since 2004, but here’s one vote for the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings being better even though they have been around only two years. Both are useful because they measure the prestige and research impact of hundreds of universities around the world at a time when there is much more international cooperation–and competition–among institutions.
It is rare for us to applaud the U.S. News rankings because there are many serious issues with the annual “Best Colleges” publication. It over-emphasizes the financial resources of colleges and their selectivity, to the detriment of most public universities.
But when it comes to world rankings, U.S. News drops the focus on financial metrics in favor of academic reputation and research metrics, including the use of regional reputation surveys that help to offset the eurocentric bias of the Times Higher Ed rankings.
For example, the Times Higher Ed rankings list 42 European universities among the top 100 in the world, while U.S. News lists 31. The main reason is probably that the Times rankings do include financial metrics and do not factor in the additional regional reputation data.
Below is a table showing the U.S. public universities ranked among the top 100 in the world by U.S. News alongside the rankings of the same universities by Times Higher Ed. An additional column shows the average ranking of each school when both ranking systems are used. The average ranking of leading U.S. public universities by U.S. News is 44 out of 100; the average Times Higher Ed ranking of the same schools is 82.
Editor’s note: The following post is from a story by Linda B. Blackford in the Lexington Herald-Leader, first published October 22, 2015. As the story notes, philanthropist Tom Lewis of Arizona has had a long acquaintance with Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. He has not only supported Barrett with his philanthropy but also the MBA program at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at UNC-Chapel Hill. Originally funding scholarships for outstanding students to attend the university of choice, whether public or private, Lewis has more recently been committed to supporting public honors colleges that help to attract top in-state students and to keep them there after graduation, thus avoiding the brain-drain that can occur in the absence of honors colleges and programs. For their recognition of the value of honors education to students, their states, and to the nation, we applaud the generous efforts of Tom and Jan Lewis and their foundation. The odds are that the University of Kentucky will soon be among the leaders in public university honors excellence. Mr. Lewis and university officials tell us that the new college will have at least four counselors devoted to career planning and counseling for honors students.
Tom Lewis, alumnus and benefactor Lewis Honors College
In September 2014, the University of Kentucky announced the largest gift in its history — $20 million from trustee Bill Gatton to help build a new student center.
On Thursday, UK announced its new biggest gift ever: $23 million from alumnus Tom Lewis and his wife, Jan, to create an honors college for UK’s most intellectually inspired students.
“This gift, by a remarkable person and leader so committed to his alma mater and to education, reflects our mission to place the success of students first in everything that we do,” President Eli Capilouto said. “Tom Lewis is investing in, and helping enhance, a vision we have to be the finest residential, public research university in America.”
The college will be in a residence hall to be built across from William T. Young Library, and the money will be used to hire a dean and eight to 10 faculty and staff, and to provide programming.
Lewis, a native of Lexington and a 1971 engineering graduate of UK, is a seventh-generation Kentuckian, UK officials said. He was a 1967 graduate of Bryan Station High School in Lexington. After graduating from UK, Lewis earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
He then went into the home construction business in Arizona, where he started T.W. Lewis Co. He lives in Paradise Valley, Ariz.
“I have a strong belief in the value of education and helping young people become the best they can be,” Lewis said. “This gift is our way of helping University of Kentucky honors students reach their full potential as leaders who will create, shape and influence people, ideas and discoveries for this and generations yet to come.”
At the Thursday news conference, Lewis said he was inspired by the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University in Tempe, near where he lives.
At Barrett, he said, he has seen that attracting the best and brightest students to stay in-state for college helps them remain afterward, and they “contribute back to the growth and prosperity of the entire state.”
Although Lewis has spent the majority of his life outside Kentucky, he made it clear that it remains close to his heart. He mentioned that all 16 of his great-grandparents lived here.
“When I think about this honors college, I really think about honoring the history of our family in Kentucky,” he said.
Lewis has already set up scholarships for students from Fayette County and some Eastern Kentucky counties.
UK has a long-established honors program, which provides enrichment classes. Provost Tim Tracy said elevating the program to a college “allows us to bring together all our resources. The students will live together and learn together.
“This will provide a very enhanced and enriched experience that allows them to gain an education they might not get otherwise.”
The plan for the college must go before the University Senate for approval.
The college will not grant degrees, and its faculty will be non-tenure track, Tracy said, because “it’s a residential college, not an academic college.” The faculty will teach courses such as life skills and organizational techniques.
For example, an honors student could major and get a degree in engineering but would be required to take 24 hours in honors classes, which would be taught by full-time faculty.
Some proposed classes for first-year students include “Jews and Christians in Medieval Europe,” “Science, Ethics and Society,” and “The Science, Public Policy, Law and Ethics of Drug Development and Human Health.”
Lewis Honors College will have about 2,000 students when it opens in fall 2016 or 2017, Tracy said. Students will be chosen based on grades, test scores and essays.
UK has committed $8.5 million a year for scholarships for honors students, Tracy said. That money is not included in the $23 million gift.
Ben Withers, associate provost for undergraduate education and dean of undergraduate studies, said that on a national level, honors colleges signal a dedication to the highest academic achievement.
“It is a highly visible symbol of the institution’s commitment to provide rigorous and challenging academic environment in all its undergraduate programs, in all colleges and majors,” he said. “The difference with honors is that the approach seeks to pull together students and faculty across campus who wish to explore interdisciplinary connections, questions and approaches.”
Withers said honors colleges should be seen as “serving all colleges but belonging to none.”
“The central mission should be to help talented, motivated students make the most of their UK experience, fostering work across any and all colleges as well as within,” he said.
Toluwalope Odukoya, a UK honors graduate now in medical school, said the honors experience is one in which intellectual discourse and exploration are expected for students who want to question and learn. He thanked the Lewises, saying the new space would “cultivate an amazing learning environment.”
“It’s not about elitism,” Odukoya said. “It’s about intentionality.”
Editor’s note: Last updated on September 15, 2019.
Parents and prospective students are often interested in the average size of course sections. Assessing class size is extremely difficult because, first, a “class” has to be defined. Why is that difficult?
Some main sections (often in intro science, economics, business, etc.) may be very large, well in excess of 100 students, but the breakout labs and discussion sections are much smaller. Should only the main section be counted, or should the labs and discussion sections also be included?
The best source for class size information and interesting data in general is the Common Data Set. Some universities publish their submissions, while others do not. The data in the CDS are used by U.S. News for many purposes, including the calculation of the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students and the percentage of classes with more than 50 students. Using that information, we can also calculate the percentage of classes with enrollments between 20 and 50 students.
U.S. News does not include tutorials, thesis research, lab or discussion sections, and neither do we in our estimates of class sizes for honors programs. According to our counts, the average public university honors-only class section has 17.54 students. When we include honors credit classes that also have non-honors students, the overall average class size is 24.9 students. Both of these numbers are better than in 2016. This is an important consideration, given that the tables below show that public universities as a whole have significantly larger class sizes, and several have increased over 2016.
The next level of difficulty when using U.S. News data is to plug in an average number for the three class size groupings. For the group of fewer than 20 students, we are using an average of 17.5 students per section; for the group of classes with 20-50 students, we are using an average of 35 students; and for the group of classes with more than 50 students, we are using an average of 110 students.
The table below shows the percentage of classes in each size category along with the increase or decrease in the overall class size average since 2016. Universities are in rank order according to lowest estimated overall class size in 2020.
Editor’s Note: This article comes from Jason Rose, an Illinois attorney with two extremely bright children, one now a freshman and the other a high school senior. What Jason has to say is especially relevant to families with highly-qualified students and with incomes that leave them in the infamous “donut hole” when it comes to financial aid. What to do when that elite college waitlist notice arrives, or even a rejection or two, despite a 34 ACT and 4.7 HSGPA?
As many parents know, this is the range when anything can happen: your child could do well at any university in the English-speaking world, but the capricious nature of elite admissions today makes acceptance unlikely for all but a fortunate few. Jason’s family’s story also provides an insightful look into the ways the winnowing process works–what students think they want is likely to change, especially with the all-important college visits. And the money–it’s hard to know what you’re willing to pay until that coveted acceptance doesn’t come with much, or any, aid. Now for Jason’s story…
My family in a nutshell: I am a 49 year old husband and parent of two teenagers: an 18-year-old daughter, Tori, (currently a freshman at a college to be named at the end of this article) and a 17-year-old son, Jake, (currently a high school senior).
Our goals: Helping guide Tori and Jake through the college admissions process without driving them, my wife, or myself crazy. Figuring out a way to make college relatively affordable. Figuring out what’s important and what’s NOT. In other words, what to sweat and what to let slide.
Tori (in a nutshell): While excelling in debate and orchestra in high school, Tori is a natural writer, researcher, and future politician. Voted most opinionated by her classmates, Tori is not interested in partying, at least not yet anyway. Although at times anxious, Tori is warm and friendly with those whom she is comfortable with. An eager learner who is well liked by her teachers, perhaps a future lawyer, professor or political wonk. For now, a likely English or Political Science major.
Issues: Attending a powerhouse public high school in an affluent suburb in northern Illinois, observers can almost believe that every student is a superstar (either academically, athletically, or in extra-curriculars) and that every family has a money tree in their backyard. While ideal in some respects, this sort of enriched environment often makes parents and their children a bit neurotic and ultra-competitive.
The Plan: Panic. No, just kidding. Read and research every admissions book and blog, every well known website, and every major college ranking service. My favorite websites were Niche, College Confidential, and Public University Honors. My favorite book about the various colleges was the venerable Fiske Guide to Colleges, which does an excellent job of going beyond the numbers and provides the reader with a feel for over 350 colleges. Later, during Tori’s senior year, I discovered the recently published book, A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs, which is the definitive book in the industry regarding the strengths of the various honors programs.
Junior Year: We visited many schools during Tori’s junior year so that we could get a feel for them all. During the visits, we quickly realized that each school has its own distinctive personality. During her junior year, Tori took the ACT multiple times, since we knew that an additional point could make the difference between getting in and getting rejected by a top school (or of getting scholarship money or not). By the end of her junior year, Tori had scored a 34 on her ACT and was sitting with a 4.7 weighted Grade Point Average, making her a very attractive candidate for most schools.
But without a hook (meaning that Tori was neither an athlete nor a legacy nor an underrepresented minority), we knew that entrance into the elite private schools was no sure thing. And even if Tori were to be accepted into a top private school, we were still not sure whether that was the best way to go.
As a quirky, intellectual type, Tori initially thought she would prefer a liberal arts school where she would benefit from close interaction with dedicated professors, small class sizes and a nurturing administration. We started by touring several fabulous liberal arts colleges on the east coast and in the Midwest, including Wellesley, Brandeis, Wesleyan, Carleton and Macalester; a few popular midsized schools (Boston University, Tulane University); and a few elite academic powerhouses (Yale, Brown, Northwestern University, University of Chicago).
What we learned during each visit is that each school had a distinct personality. Sometimes it came from the way the students interacted with each other or from the way the admissions officers would go through their spiels. Wherever it came from, it was palpable, something you could just feel.
But a funny thing happened during our search….after 5 or 10 visits, Tori realized that she was attracted to colleges in major cities. This was a major monkey in the wrench, since most of schools in major cities were typically larger, research powerhouses, while many of the best liberal arts colleges were in idyllic small towns, often far from any major city.
Senior Year (First Semester): By the beginning of Tori’s senior year, we thought that we were well prepared for the year ahead and the upcoming admissions process. At this point, Tori’s college list was in serious transition. Several colleges in major cities were added (welcome University of Minnesota, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin, Rice University, Washington University at St.Louis and Emory University, among others) while the original target liberal arts colleges, which had at first appeared to be a wonderful fit, dropped out of the picture one by one. With the inclusion of several larger public schools, I began to look into the honors programs at Texas-Austin, Minnesota and Boston University.
Fortunately, two of the public schools on Tori’s list (Minnesota and Pittsburgh) had rolling admissions, which meant that Tori would receive acceptances from these schools in a matter of weeks. Knowing that Tori had acceptances from two very good schools early in the process (with scholarships from both schools) reduced the collective stress somewhat.
Meanwhile, I created color-coded charts listing the various application and scholarship deadlines and Tori got to work on her common application essay and the various mini-essays which the various colleges would require. By the end of the 2014, Tori had applied to twelve colleges, more than most students but not an extreme number, at least from our perspective. In our case, the number was appropriate since Tori was applying to several elite colleges with shrinking accepting rates and because Tori was not yet willing to limit herself to just one area of the country.
The net was also relatively wide since we had still not talked much as a family about exactly how much money had been saved and how much money might have to be borrowed in the future. Admittedly, the matter of how to fund college for two students was something that probably should have been discussed much earlier in the process.
Senior Year (Second Semester): Tori applied to one school early action, Yale. Deferred…which meant that we would not know until the end of March whether she would be admitted to Yale and the other elite schools that she applied to. While some students already had acceptances in hand to their dream schools, we could tell that Tori’s second semester would be stressful as we awaited decisions from most of the schools that she applied to.
The various reactions to Tori’s deferral from Yale were particularly interesting. In some cases, people would ask us “Is Tori o.k?”, sensing that Tori might be disappointed by the deferral and knowing that the odds for Tori to get in were not great. Others, however, would get excited and say “that’s amazing,” knowing that the Ivy league was just a pipe dream for most students and that most students would not have the grades and test scores to even contemplate attending an Ivy league school.
By February and March, the results started to roll in. Tori would eventually be accepted by 9 of the 12 schools that she applied to, with one school offering her a spot on the waitlist and two Ivy league schools (Yale and Brown) rejecting her. The schools that accepted Tori ran the geographic gamut, in the Midwest, South and along the eastern seaboard. Several of the schools were excellent public research universities (Texas, Minnesota, Pittsburgh), but Tori also was accepted into several smaller elite private schools, including Rice, Emory, Tulane, Washington University (“WUSTL”) and Boston University.
Decision Time: During our visit last fall to St. Louis, Tori had fallen in love with WUSTL, and when she was accepted, Tori was starting to see herself as spending her next four years there. But when the various financial aid packages came rolling in, we were quickly seeing that our family fell into the so-called donut (where families are relatively well off but not so wealthy that they could afford to pay $50,000-65,000 per year to have their child attend college). Some of these schools in fact were willing to work with us, but reductions of $5,000-10,000/year (while certainly substantial) only made a dent on the four year cost of an education.
Meanwhile, a weekend trip to Texas (to see Texas-Austin and Rice) was changing the list of favorites. In particular, Tori became enamored during her Texas trip not only with the city of Austin but also with UT’s Plan II Honors Program, which was widely regarded as being one of the very best honors programs in the country. The venerable but outstanding Fiske Guide to Colleges had touted Plan II as being one of the nation’s most renowned programs and also one of the best values in the country…at least for students in Texas who would pay in-state tuition. Additionally, A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs had also listed Plan II as being one of the very best honors programs in the country. But would out-of-state tuition push UT-Austin into the group with some of the other excellent, but ultimately unaffordable options.
At this point, the focus went towards some of the schools that had offered Tori sizable scholarships, most notably Tulane and Pittsburgh. Another trip to New Orleans impressed but did not lead to a commitment. This would be a decision that would go down to the wire.
The Decision: With May Day soon approaching, Tori decided that she wanted to go to Austin and that she wanted to take advantage of Plan II’s interdisciplinary curriculum. This, frankly, was a bit of a shocker because Tori is more of an intellectual than a sports fan. Most people who knew her expected Tori to select a smaller school, not a major research university with 50,000 students known at least somewhat for its prowess in the various major sports. At this point, we reached out to Texas to see if there was any possibility of receiving a Non-Resident Tuition Exemption (“NRTE”). NRTEs are in short supply at Texas-Austin, but most of the various departments at UT (Engineering, Business, Plan II) have a limited number of NRTE each year. In this case, we explained that while Tori would love to attend Texas-Austin, an NRTE would be needed to turn this dream into a reality.
Just days before May Day, we received the word from UT-Austin: Tori would be extended a small scholarship, which would be linked to an NRTE. Tori would be heading to Austin, Texas.
The Aftermath: So how’s it going so far? Two months into the school year, Tori is making new friends, enjoying her new environment, the honors dormitories at UT, and the improved climate–and excelling in the classroom. There will certainly be stressful days ahead and obstacles to overcome but at this point it looks like Tori absolutely made the right decision for herself. But I can’t spend too much time mulling over the past year: our second child, Jake, is now a high school senior and so we are going over a new set of options with a new set of decisions to be made.
Editor’s Note: The following story comes to us from UW-Eau Claire, and the author is Shari Lau…Honors programs often provide resources and support for course development that benefits the whole university.
Becoming an effective nurse is about more than mastering technical skills in a lab. It’s about understanding people and connecting with them to individualize their care.
Dr. Cheryl Lapp, professor of nursing at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, believes her responsibility as a teacher is to prepare the next generation of nurses to see patients as people first. That’s why she created a University Honors Program course titled “Empathy Enhancement for the Helping Professions.”
The College of Nursing and Health Sciences recently presented Lapp with the 2015 Suzanne Van Ort Award for Creativity and Scholarliness for her development of the course, which uses an innovative teaching strategy focusing on theater applications.
To learn more about the “Empathy Enhancement for the Helping Professions” Honors course and Lapp’s relationship with the University Honors Program, read the Q&A below.
Q&A with Dr. Cheryl Lapp, professor of nursing
Can you describe the “Empathy Enhancement for the Helping Professions” Honors course?
This is a course I designed using theater applications to help students examine and experience empathy in face-to-face human situations that feel authentic, yet do not violate confidentiality. Theater and artistic expression can provide an intense experience for which you are present in the moment. It can also provide the immediacy of an emotional connection with an actor in a personal way, or collectively, in the context of the audience experience. Everyone knows that seeing something performed is not real life, but when done effectively, there is a “suspension of disbelief” that makes the emotional or intellectual connection very real.
In the course, we begin by learning about how empathy connects us with other people. Together we visit Dr. Jennifer Chapman in the department of music and theatre arts and do some exercises analyzing what another person may want, what obstacles may stand in the way and which strategies the other person is using to get what is wanted. Through this exploration, we all learn a little more about ourselves and our own human responses.
In the latter part of the course we also spend some time exploring communication techniques that we can carry with us into our various professions. We become aware of skills like listening more astutely, being more present in the moment, becoming more comfortable with silence and through being intentionally curious, we can all learn to refrain from making premature assumptions or taking sides. I like to leave the students feeling as though they’ve developed some tools that will foster and enhance their own capacity for empathy.
What inspired you to create this course?
I was inspired to create this course when I read an article about the “empathy enigma,” and upon further exploration, I found ample evidence in the literature documenting that empathy declines in nursing and medical students over time and with experience. This was startling to me as a nurse educator, and when listening to my graduate students in classroom discussions, I could often detect a hardening attitude in some of them about the very populations for whom we need to be advocating. I decided to make the examination of empathy in professional life the focus of my sabbatical project.
Early in my sabbatical, I became more inspired by reading the empathy-related research of a psychologist working with medical students at another university. I actually set up a telephone consultation and asked if I could observe a class session. To make a long story short, I ended up traveling to California and was invited to help facilitate a class of medical students blended with senior citizens. One of our strategies involved reading selected theater scenes with the students and senior citizens, followed by reflection and discussion of perspectives of both patient and provider. The senior participants influenced all of us to think and feel differently about situations as a result of sharing their life-informed wisdom. For me, this encounter sparked a powerful and enduring foundation for my work.
What does receiving the Suzanne Van Ort Award for Creativity and Scholarliness for your work in developing this course mean to you?
It means a great deal to receive this award from the nursing department. It demonstrates appreciation for my efforts to directly influence our ability to connect with people, and thus improve the hallmark of our practice, which is caring. The award’s recognition for course development in the University Honors Program also demonstrates the nursing department’s support of interdisciplinary work, as this offering was designed for Honors students across campus who see themselves in any helping profession, not only nursing.
What does it mean to you to have the opportunity to create a course such as this as part of the Honors program?
This opportunity is a rare gift. It’s like a dream come true for any teacher to have the chance to create an interdisciplinary course about something one is personally interested in, committed to or has a passion for, especially when it may not directly address an essential component of existing curriculum. It is a real pleasure to have been granted this unique opportunity that the University Honors Program offers.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
As one result of this exploration, I value curiosity more than ever. I see myself as a learner, always. And looking back on this first class of students, I’ll be forever amazed by the depth of personal insight that they were prepared to share with one another.
Editor’s note: The following article is from the University of Arkansas. My thanks to Kendall Curless of the Honors College for sending it along.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas have established that pits and scratches on the teeth of mammal fossils give important clues to the diet of creatures that lived millions of years ago. Two new studies, both involving undergraduate Honors College students, analyze the effect of environmental change on the teeth of existing species, and may shed light on the evolutionary fossil record.
Peter Ungar, Distinguished Professor and chair of the anthropology department, mentored the students and is a coauthor on both papers.
Both studies compare dental wear of species in environments that are relatively undisturbed to those in environments that have been disturbed by human development.
“Human disturbance, from an ecological perspective, is not a great thing, but for folks like me, they’re really cool natural experiments,” Peter Ungar said. “If we can understand the reaction of living animals, including primates, to environmental change, then we can apply that to the past, to understand evolution. Conversely, we can use our understanding of how things change on evolutionary time scales to get a better appreciation for our effects on the environment today.”
Tracking Lemurs in Madagascar
The paper “Mechanical food properties and dental topography differentiate three populations of Lemur catta in southwest Madagascar” was recently accepted by the Journal of Human Evolution, the premier journal in the field.
Emily Fitzgerald (B.A. in anthropology, magna cum laude, ’12) and Andrea Riemenschneider (B.A. in anthropology, cum laude, ’13), who were undergraduate honors students at the time, used data collected in Madagascar by Frank Cuozzo and Michelle Sauther. Since 2003 Cuozzo and Sauther have caught and made molds of the teeth of ring-tailed lemurs across a variety of habitats.
Building on research by first author Nayuta Yamashita, Fitzgerald and Riemenschneider made high-resolution casts of the molds, then used a laser scanner to make 3-D models of the teeth, which they analyzed using global-information system software. Their findings confirmed different patterns of wear in different settings.
Lemurs in disturbed areas were most heavily impacted, wearing their teeth “down to nubbins – we’re not entirely sure why,” Ungar said. This finding could help scientists interpret wear-related tooth shape changes more generally.
ComparinG Capuchin and Howler Monkeys in the Brazilian Amazon
In “Environmental Perturbations Can be Detected Through Microwear Texture Analysis in Two Platyrrhine Species From Brazilian Amazonia,” recently published in the American Journal of Primatology, Almudena Estalrrich, a doctoral exchange student from Spain, and Mariel Williams Young (B.A. in anthropology and Spanish, magna cum laude, with a minor in psychology, ’13), then an undergraduate Honors College student, analyzed the effects of habitat variation on capuchin and howler monkeys.
Each species was sampled from environments ranging from minimally disturbed to an area that had been deforested with the construction of a hydroelectric dam.
Young used a confocal microscope to zoom in on a very small part of the tooth – the wear area where the upper and lower teeth come into contact. The team predicted that capuchins, which eat nuts and berries, would be more impacted by environmental disturbance than howler monkeys, which eat leaves.
Their findings confirmed this prediction, and established that dental microwear texture analysis is an effective tool to detect subtle differences in diets among living primates. Studies like this one, which use well-documented specimens with differences in habitats, suggest that subtle changes in microwear may shed light on habitat-forced diet changes in the fossil record.
Peter Ungar has worked with dozens of Honors College students in the past 20 years, and several have published their undergraduate research in peer-reviewed journals.
“Honors students are bread and butter for me,” Ungar said. “I couldn’t get done what I get done, research-wise, without their help.”
“It feels great to have a publication early in my career,” said Mariel Young, who completed a master’s degree in human evolutionary studies at Cambridge and is now pursuing a doctoral degree in human evolutionary biology at Harvard. Young was awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship and NSF Graduate Fellowship, and credits her success to research with Ungar: “These two awards have had a huge impact on my career, and my initial research at U of A in Dr. Ungar’s lab is definitely what set me on the path toward achieving them.”
“We’re very proud of these three alumni, and pleased that, yet again, undergraduate thesis research conducted by our Honors College students has been published in top journals,” said Lynda Coon, dean of the Honors College.
About the Honors College: The University of Arkansas Honors College was established in 2002 and unites the university’s top undergraduate students and professors in a learning environment characterized by discovery, creativity and service. Each year the Honors College awards up to 90 freshman fellowships that provide $70,000 over four years, and more than $1 million in undergraduate research and study abroad grants. The Honors College is nationally recognized for the high caliber of students it admits and graduates. Honors students enjoy small, in-depth classes, and programs are offered in all disciplines, tailored to students’ academic interests, with interdisciplinary collaborations encouraged. One hundred percent of Honors College graduates have engaged in mentored research.
The Coalition for Access and Affordability is a new group of 80-plus colleges and universities, all with six-year grad rates of 70 percent and higher, and all apparently committed to transforming the admissions process at high-profile institutions. Among the members are all Ivy League schools, top liberal arts colleges, and many leading public universities. So far, the UC System and the UT System are not listed as members.
Note: A link showing coalition members is at the end of this post.
What exactly all of this means for the Common App is uncertain. For now, it appears that coalition members will use it.
“What the emergence of a new rival might mean for the Common Application could become an intriguing storyline over the next few years,” the Chronicle of Higher Ed reports. The standardized admissions form used by more than 600 colleges worldwide has long dominated the college-admissions realm.
“But it’s raising the college-access flag, too. Recently, the organization bolstered the college-planning resources for students on its website, including information specifically for middle-school students and ninth graders. ‘It’s planning to roll out ‘virtual counselor’ materials, including articles and videos that answer specific questions about the application process,” said Aba G. Blankson, director of communications for the Common Application.”
Questions remain about the mission and intentions of the coalition. One dean of admissions told the Chronicle of HigherEd that “I’m not convinced about the true intentions of the coalition. The schools participating in this effort should not mask their intentions on the guise of ‘access.’ It’s a deceiving marketing ploy… ”
As usual, Nancy Griesemer, writing for the Washington Examiner, has written an excellent post on the hot topic.
“In a nutshell,” she writes, “the Coalition is developing a free platform of online college planning and application tools. The tools will include a digital portfolio, a collaboration platform, and an application portal.
“High school students will be encouraged to add to their online portfolios beginning in the ninth grade examples of their best work, short essays, descriptions of extracurricular activities, videos, etc. Students could opt to share or not share all or part of their portfolios with college admissions or counseling staff and ‘community mentors.'” [Emphasis added.]
The planning site and portfolio portals are supposed to be open to high school students in January 2016, and the supposition is that coalition members will be using the data then.
“Billed as a system designed to have students think more deeply about what they are learning or accomplishing in high school by the development of online portfolios, the new endeavor will actually create efficient ways for college admissions officers to access more detailed information about prospective applicants earlier in the game,” Griesemer writes.
“The coalition application is an interesting concept, but begs the question of who will benefit more from the information-sharing plan—high school students or colleges. And while the plan is promoted as helping students—particularly disadvantaged students—to present themselves to colleges in a more robust manner, it seems likely that students able to afford early college coaching may actually benefit quite a bit from being able to post their accomplishments on a platform viewed and commented on by admissions staff.” [Emphasis added.]
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