Recently we wrote that the U.S. News ranking methodology and a new way of analyzing academic reputation have an overall negative impact on public universities. Today, however, another initiative by the magazine will at least show how some public universities are able to present a quality education at relatively low cost.
Like another higher authority, the magazine can both give and take away.
Congratulations to Florida State for taking the top spot on the list. Miami of Ohio is third, followed by Alabama, William & Mary, and several other public universities we follow. One interesting aspect is that William & Mary, the smallest state school on the list, is the only national university in the U.S. News top 50 to make the value list.
One possible explanation is that the high cost of research in engineering, physics, and computer science might have kept these schools off the list. If so, then the presence on the list of Clemson and Virginia Tech, both with an engineering focus, is a special tribute to them.
Please see the list below.
This latest development appears to be a sort of U.S. News version of the Kiplinger Best Value report, which compares a school’s ranking with the tuition and debt costs of students to define value. The new U.S.News angle is to compare its own ranking of a school with the amount per student spent by the school.
Unlike the other recent change by the magazine that generally undervalues the rankings of public universities, this change uses financial resources to show how some publics can do a lot with a little. If a school has a relatively high U.S. News ranking, then the amount spent per student can likewise be relatively higher and still yield financial value. If a school has a relatively low U.S. News ranking, then the amount spent per student likewise has to be low for the financial value to be indicated.
Here are some examples from the magazine’s recent post on the new feature. We will list major public universities on the list, the magazine rank, and then the amount per student spent by the universities. The list is in rank order, by value as assessed by the magazine:
Florida State: ranking (97); expenditure per student ($17,731)
Miami of Ohio: ranking (89); expenditure per student ($19,091)
Alabama: ranking (77); expenditure per student ($20,288)
William & Mary: ranking (33); expenditure per student ($27,572)
Colorado School of Mines: ranking (77); expenditure per student ($21,417)
Missouri: ranking (97); expenditure per student ($21,226)
Binghamton: ranking (89); expenditure per student ($22,181)
Indiana: ranking (83); expenditure per student ($22,806)
Ohio U: ranking (131); expenditure per student ($18,983)
Rutgers-Newark: ranking (115); expenditure per student ($20,801)
Georgia: ranking (63); expenditure per student ($27,028)
Clemson: ranking (68); expenditure per student ($26,293)
South Carolina: ranking (115); expenditure per student ($21,389)
Virginia Tech: ranking (72); expenditure per student ($26,261)
Oregon: ranking (115); expenditure per student ($21,749)
Dont’ be surprised if you hear in the near future that UC Berkeley, the University of Virginia, Stanford, MIT, and Cornell are “underperforming” universities when it comes to living up to their academic reputations.
While there are some private schools on the short list above, the most recent rankings twist by U.S. News would have you believe that far more public than private universities are performing below their perceived level of quality.
U.S. News, probably trying to answer criticism that its use of academic reputation as a metric is too subjective, is now comparing academic reputation to other factors it uses in order to allegedly demonstrate the validity of each school’s reputation. The problem is that too many of the other factors used in this process are dependent on the financial resources of each school.
We now wonder whether this new analysis means that U.S. News is signaling a tilt toward the Forbes rankings, long known for being especially unfriendly to public universities. Forbes’ quirky rankings do not use academic reputation but only “outcomes,” including membership in Who’s Who, salaries of graduates, and the clout of graduates in the corporate realm. The Forbes rankings are largely the product of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a leading critic of public research universities and an advocate for their privatization.
For a while now we have written about alternative ways to view the annual U.S. News college rankings. (Please see An Alternative List of 2013 U.S. News College Rankings for an example.) Our view is that these rankings have placed too much emphasis on the financial resources and selectivity of institutions, often to the detriment of public universities. So far, the negative impact of that over-emphasis has been significant but not profound.
But now the magazine is upping the ante–and lowering the “value” of public universities–by assigning overperformance or underperformance rankings based on a comparison of a given school’s undergraduate academic reputation with the magazine’s ranking. If the U.S. News rank is better than the reputation rank, then the school has overperformed relative to its reputation. If the magazine rank is worse than the reputation rank, then the school is underperforming.
Examples of alleged under and overperformance are listed below.
The magazine’s resident number-cruncher, Robert Morse, is clear about the new analysis and its impact on public research universities:
“Many of the overperformers are relatively small research universities that grant fewer doctorates and conduct less research than others schools in their category. All the underperformers are large public universities—in some cases the top ‘flagship’ public in their state—whose academic reputation rank exceeds the performance in the academic indicators.” [Emphasis added.]
So, anyway, that’s the shot across the bow from U.S. News. Now for some facts and explanation.
U.S. News, like Forbes, has always combined public and private universities and more recently has overemphasized financial factors, which works against most public universities. Now, in this new analysis, U.S. News is also penalizing public universities that have managed to build strong faculties and earn the respect of high school counselors despite their relative lack of funding.
How the Financial Over-emphasis Affects Public Universities
State University A has a decent endowment but a high undergrad enrollment. The university has a well-respected faculty, but class size is larger than at a private school. The relative lack of funding means that the school has to balance faculty quality and class size and does not have the luxury of spending the enormous sums required to retain top professors and maintain small class size at the same time.
If University A stops hiring well-respected faculty and begins using, say, 1.5 adjuncts per single faculty slot, class size falls but so does academic reputation, along with the U.S News rank. If University A goes back to hiring better faculty at higher cost, then class sizes increase, and the U.S. News methodology penalizes them on that end too.
If you say, well, more money always wins out, please go to our link above. There we write that if you strip away the alumni giving, the impact of endowment, and other financial metrics and focus only on the essentials of academic reputation, graduation rates, and small classes, the publics do better overall than they do when the financial metrics and their magnifying impact are included.
It is one thing for U.S. News to show the impact of ample funding (smaller class size, more money for faculty), but adding points simply for having the money magnifies the impact of funding. As we have noted elsewhere, this is like giving a well-heeled college applicant with a high SAT score credit for both the high score and the financial resources of his or her parents.
Is It Time for Public Universities to Boycott U.S. News?
U.S. News now seems poised to magnify the magnifying effect described above, especially among leading research institutions that have struggled against inadequate funding and self-interested “reformers” to build strong academic reputations anyway. Why do these institutions make every effort to have the best faculty? Well, here is what Morse himself has to say.
“Peer assessments are subjective, but they are also important because a diploma from a distinguished college helps graduates get good jobs or gain admission to top-notch graduate programs.”
But the “top-notch graduate programs” that exist at public research institutions can be the very reason, according to Morse, that the universities’ reputations are inflated (if you accept that the magazine’s rankings trump reputation).
“[Underperformance] could mean that the school’s undergraduate academic reputation is benefiting from a much higher reputation held by its various graduate schools. Or, it could mean that the school’s reputation has yet to fully reflect negative trends that are taking place in the underlying academic indicators.” Especially those indicators that have dollar signs.
If this looks like a tough row to hoe for state universities, it is. Educating tens of thousands of students while maintaining relatively low cost and a strong faculty count for little despite evidence of public excellence. (See, for example, College Value: Public Honors vs. Private Elites.)
Maybe it’s time for the public universities to let U.S. News and Forbes do only what they do best: promote leading private colleges and universities that already have pretty much all that they need.
Examples of “underperforming” universities are below. The minus sign figure equals the difference between a school’s undergraduate academic reputation in the magazine’s latest rankings (in most cases) and its U.S. News rank. For its new analysis, the magazine is using “peer group” reputation rather than the entire metric for academic reputation used in the 2013 rankings, probably because outside analysts cannot separate out the peer group ranking from the entire metric. The entire metric uses peer group plus high school counselor assessments of reputation. Schools in bold below are based on the peer group reputation only, as already published by U.S. News; others are based on the entire metric used in the current magazine reputation rank. Although the new analysis when it is published will present different figures from some of those not in boldface below, we believe these numbers give you a good idea of what’s coming.
M.I.T (-5)
Stanford (-5)
Johns Hopkins (-7)
Cornell (-9)
UC Berkeley (-13)
Michigan (-12)
Virginia (-6)
North Carolina (-7)
UT Austin (-20)
Wisconsin (-15)
Georgia Tech (-10)
Illinois (-12)
Penn State (-9)
Washington (-9)
Indiana (-39)
Kansas (-39)
Arizona State (-69)
Arizona (-61)
(Note: we have also commented that U.S. News is especially hard on the Arizona schools, despite many examples of excellence at both institutions.)
Illinois Chicago (-53)
Montana (-48)
Colorado (-46)
New Mexico (-45)
Oregon (-45)
Utah (-43)
As is the case with the Forbes rankings, the new U.S. News analysis will bring attention to schools that are not much in the public eye. Those that have the highest overperformance are these: Adelphi, Ashland, St. Thomas, St. Mary’s of Minnesota, Azusa Pacific, and one public school, South Carolina State.
Although this new program is not limited to honors students, we thought it would be of interest. The excellent piece about the program by the campus editor follows.
By Allison McGillivray, Campus Editor, The Miami Student
Miami University Senate approved the creation of a pre-medicine co-major at its meeting Monday Nov.19. The major will allow students who plan to apply to medical school to major in pre-medicine in addition to their chosen major.
The new co-major will require students to take all courses that are required by medical schools and that will be covered on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), which recently added to the material that test-takers are required to know, according to Dave Pennock, professor of zoology.
In addition, pre-medicine co-majors must take a course in their first-year where they plan their studies at Miami. Students must also take a medical school application preparation class in their third year.
The Senate’s approval of the major makes Miami the first school in Ohio to have a pre-medicine co-major, according to Pennock.
Senator and Professor of political science Philip Russo said the co-major should be approved since it institutionalizes a program that Miami already has and will make a difference in recruiting pre-medicine students.
“You can bet that there are several university senates around the state discussing this right now, given the political economy for competing for these types of students in the state of Ohio, there will be several coming down the pike,” Russo said. “So we might as well get out in front on this and institutionalize what we already have.”
Editor’s Note: The Miami Student is the oldest campus newspaper in the U.S., having been established in 1826.
Unlike faculty Fulbright Scholars who receive prestigious grants to do research abroad, Fulbright Student Scholars are still undergraduates or graduates who are completing work on master’s or doctorate degrees, and in some cases, bachelor’s degrees.
The public universities that lead in the number of Fulbright Student Scholars over the most recent three-year period are Michigan, Arizona State, UC Berkeley, Rutgers, North Carolina, Washington, Maryland, Pitt, and Illinois.
Earning any Fulbright award is a signal achievement. For this year’s report on public university leaders in student awards, we will also recognize leaders in the percentage of Fulbright applicants who were award the scholarships. (Note: thanks to the Chronicle of Higher Education for the publishing the number of applicants along with the number of awards.)
Below, please see the top 20 public universities for Fulbright student honors in 2012. Once again, Michigan led all universities, public or private, in the total number of Fulbright Student Scholars. We also want to congratulate Oklahoma State, Arizona State, South Carolina, and Ohio University for the high percentage of their student applicants who actually won the award. (Arizona State and South Carolina are also among the top 20 in total awards among public universities. Any school with 11 or more awards is also in the top 30 nationally, among both public and private national universities.)
The average success rate for the top 40 national research universities, public and private, was 25 percent. Below we will list the percentages for all schools who exceeded the average percentage. The average number of awards earned by students from the 50 major public universities we follow most closely was just over 8.
Fulbright students from U.S. universities may study any subject abroad, except for clinical medicine. Below are the figures for 2012:
Recently, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science, publisher of the prestigious journal Science, released the names of just over 700 U.S. faculty members who had been named fellows of the AAAS. Below is a partial breakdown, showing the public institutions with at least five fellows for the current year.
In addition, we will have a separate list showing the number of National Academy of Sciences (NAS) members for each university. Membership in the NAS is extremely selective.
Some of the numbers may be a surprise, but what is no surprise is the prominence of University of California schools, especially on the NAS list.
New Fellows AAAS (note: our list does not include fellows from medical schools affiliated with universities)
Michigan–19(led all institutions, public and private)
Ohio State–18 (second among all institutions)
Univ of S. Florida–14
UC Davis–13
UC Irvine–13
Maryland–11
UC San Diego–11
Washington–11
Indiana–10
Purdue–9
North Carolina–8
Stony Brook–8
UC Santa Barbara–8
Washington State–8
Georgia Tech–7
Minnesota–7
Tennessee–7
UCLA–7
UT Austin–7
Illinois–6
Penn State–6
Colorado State–5
Florida–5
Georgia–5
Missouri–5
Rutgers–5
Univ of Cent. Florida–5
The next list shows public institutions that have at least ten faculty members in the National Academy of Sciences:
UC Berkeley–129 (third highest in the nation, public or private, following Harvard and Stanford)
As an architect and president of Clemson University, James F. Barker is perhaps the best person in America to speak to the value of the college campus as a place where young men and women can learn, grow, and be transformed within an atmosphere that is not only intellectually stimulating but also physically beautiful and inspiring.
Barker was one of several college presidents who contributed essays to a publication entitled Responding to the Commodification of Higher Education. The title of Barker’s essay is “The Endangered Campus: Defining and Defending the Value of Place-Based Higher Education.”
Online delivery is “no substitute for the experience of ‘going away to college,'” he writes. “We must bring that experience into the 21st century and make it meaningful for today’s students. The best education is not transactional but transformational. It’s not: ‘You give me X amount of money and I give you a credential and a degree.’ Rather it is: ‘You give us four years, and you get a life-changing experience.’
Barker might have been speaking as well of the value of Clemson’s Calhoun Honors College, one of the most successful in the nation.
Barker recognizes the utility of digital learning methods, noting that for years Clemson has used a blended model in almost all math courses and in introductory chemistry. Students work in small groups while seated at round “technologically-enabled tables,” where they listen to short lectures and then complete exercises “to reinforce concepts and track progress.” Using this model, students have had higher success and graduation rates.
Yet the success of this blended model in some kinds of instruction does not replace what Barker calls the “Idea of the Campus,” rooted in five concepts:
• Each campus is a distinct place. Each of us experiences it in a very personal way.
• The campus is a community – an intentional community. We are not born there. We choose to study or work there. It is a place of diversity and unity.
• The campus is stimulating and energetic. It bustles with ideas, creativity, and innovation.
• The campus is a work of art – for many of us, the first designed, beautiful, and cohesive landscape we experience.
• The campus is a place of pilgrimage – a place we return to, to renew a sense of belonging to the community we experienced in our youth.
But campus communities have another powerful value. “Besides the cultural and historic value of our campuses, they also have economic value” Barker writes. “In a recent New York Times column, Thomas Friedman wrote that ‘the best entrepreneurial ecosystems
in the future will be cities and towns that combine a university, an educated populace, a dynamic business community and the fastest broadband connections. These will be the job factories of the future.'”
But the most important value of the physical campus is the impetus it gives to instruction. “A beautiful, stimulating campus environment attracts the best students, faculty, and staff. It encourages personal reflection and group learning. Simply being together in a physical place, as a community of teachers and learners, has tremendous educational advantages,” the president-architect writes.
The real concerns for Barker and many other higher education leaders is not whether online instruction will have a significant role on campus but how that role should be defined in a way that does not diminish the overriding place of the campus as the principal seat of learning.
Most would agree with Barker that “he campus has always been the place where students begin separating from their families and gain independence. It’s a place where the deepest kinds of discovery and learning can and should happen. It’s a place where brains are fed, minds are opened, and lifelong connections and communities are formed. It’s a place that attracts creative, innovative people and creates the right ecosystem for community and economic development.”
Now that we have the full list of Marshall Scholars 2013 , we thought it would be a good time to report on the number of Marshall scholars among the 50 public universities we follow, since 2001, the year we use in our metric for Marshall awards.
Below are the universities and the number of Marshall Scholarships since 2001:
We now have a complete list of the 2013 winners of the Marshall Scholarships, which fund two years of graduate study at any university in the United Kingdom.
Up to 40 Marshall Scholarships are awarded each year to students at U.S. universities, but this year only 34 scholars were selected. Below are the 34 students and the 31 universities they represent:
Abilene Christian University–Brittany Partridge, a political science major and founder of the Red Thread Movement, which raises awareness of modern-day slavery and works to save Nepalese girls from the sex trafficking, will study at University College, London. The Red Thread Movement has supporters at about 75 campuses across the nation. She also won a Truman Scholarship this year.
Air Force Academy–Ian Gibson, also a Truman Scholar, will study political science at the London School of Economics.
Boston College–Aditya Ashok was a winner of the Truman Scholarship in 2011; he majored in history and biology and will study global health at the University of Glasgow.
Brandeis–Elizabeth Stoker, a graduate in theology and Christian ethics, will study philosophy at Oxford.
Brown–Nick Werle, a 2010 graduate in physics and modern philosophy, will work on master’s degrees at University College, London, and the London School of Economics.
Colorado State–Christopher Counts, a student in the honors program with majors in biomedical sciences and anthropology, will study at University College, London. He is the founder of Hygiene for Humanity.
Columbia–Dylan Liu, an engineering major, will study theoretical physics at Oxford.
UConn–Ethan Butler, a chemical engineering graduate and previous winner of a Udall award, will study at Imperial College, London.
CUNY John Jay College for Criminal Justice–Nicolas Montano, a senior in CUNY’s Unique and Interdisciplinary Studies Program at John Jay College, will pursue two master’s degrees–one in research in the social sciences at the University Liverpool and the other in criminal justice policy at the London School of Economics.
Duke–Kenneth Hoehn, a biology major with minors in computational biology and bioinformatics, will study at Oxford.
Georgetown (2)–Shea Houlihan, an international politics major, will study social research methods and international migration at the University of Sussex. Benjamin Buchanan graduated in 2011 with a degree in government and minors in Arabic and English, will pursue either a doctorate in war studies from King’s College, London, or a doctorate in information communication and the social sciences at Oxford.
George Washington–Stephanie Figgins, who graduated in 2011 with a degree in economics and international affairs, will study post-colonial culture and global politics at the University of London; she has been a journalist with the Voice of America in Cairo.
Georgia Tech–Jacob Tzegaebe, pursuing a five-year BS/MS degree in civil engineering, will work on a doctorate in the same field at University College, London. He has also earned an NSF grant and was a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship.
Harvard (2)–Aditya Balasubramanium will study political science at the London School of Economics, and Alex Palmer will study at King’s College, London.
Illinois–Jonathan Naber, a 2011 graduate in materials science and engineering, designed prosthetic prototypes and established a non-profit organization to provide low-cost prosthetic devices to amputees in the developing world. Jonathan will pursue a degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is now working in Guatemala on a project to make the devices out of native materials.
Michigan–Spencer Smith graduated in 2011 with degrees in economics and math and will study economics at Oxford.
Montana State–Bryan Vadheim, a member of the University Honors Program, is MSU’s first Marshall Scholar. He will study at the London School of Economics and King’s College, London. His interests are water science and governance. Montana State also produced a Rhodes Scholar this year: Joe Thiel, who will study engineering at Oxford.
Naval Academy (2)–Katelyn Davidson, and English major, will work on an M.A. in gender and equality at Queen’s University in Belfast and an M.A. in international peace and security at Kings College, London. Ronald Allen, an economics major, will study public policy at Kings College, London. The Naval Academy also had two Rhodes Scholars this year.
Northwestern–Jennifer Mills, a triple major in earth and planetary science, integrated sciences, and chemistry, also has a minor in physics. She is part of the university’s highly-selective integrated sciences program. Already the author of two scientific articles, she will study and integrated science, she will study climate science at Cambridge and the University of Edinburgh.
NYU–Jessica Mason, a social work graduate, will study global policy at the London School of Economics and work on an MSc. at Oxford.
Ohio University–Keith Hawkins, already a Goldwater Scholar, studied astrophysics, math, and African studies in the university’s Honors Tutorial College. He is doing research now at the University of Hawaii and previously did research at Caltech. He will continue his studies at Cambridge.
Ohio State–Alexander Chaitoff, a Truman Scholarship winner in 2012, will complete an MPH at the University of Sheffield.
Oklahoma–Jerod Coker, a senior economics major, will pursue a master’s degree in economics and philosophy at the London School of Economics, after which he plans to obtain a JD/MBA from Harvard. OU student Mubeen Shakir, a biochemistry major, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship this year.
Pitt–Paras Minhas, a microbiology major and student in the honors college, will work on a Ph.D. at University College, London.
Princeton–Jake Nebel, a philosophy student, will work on an M.A. at Oxford.
Rice–Rahul Rekhi, a bioengineering major, will study biology and bioinformatics at Oxford. He has also won both Truman and Goldwater awards.
USC–Alexander Fullman, a political science major, will continue his studies in that field at Oxford.
UT Austin–William Berdanier, a Dean’s Scholar honors student in physics and math, has also won a Goldwater Scholarship. His undergraduate research has focused in part on developing fusion energy. He will study at Cambridge.
Virginia–Hillary Hurd was a Jefferson Scholar at UVA and majored in Russian and East European Studies. She will concentrate on international studies at Cambridge and at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.
Washington U St. Louis–Alexander Baron, also a Luce Scholar, has majors in philosophy, neuroscience, psychology, and political science. He will pursue graduate studies at Oxford.
Wesleyan–Zully Adler, a history grad in 2011, will study art history and print culture at Oxford.
Below is a recent story from the UT Austin Plan II site:
Marissa Nichole Duswalt, a spring 2010 Plan II Honors and Dean’s Scholars graduate in Nutritional Science (Registered Dietitian) will transition from her current position in the Office of the Secretary of the US Department of Agriculture to join the White House Office of the First Lady as Associate Director of Policy and Events for the Let’s Move! initiative.
The goal of the Let’s Move! initiative is to reverse childhood obesity, which impacts one in three American children. The initiative seeks to engage every sector of society in this effort, as everyone has a role to play to ensure that America’s kids have the opportunity to reach a healthy adulthood.
Duswalt says she is “honored to serve in this new role for this cause, as it has been a passion of mine since entering college at UT. As an undergraduate in the Plan II Honors Program as well as the Coordinated Program in Dietetics, I had the privilege of studying this critical issue across multiple disciplines. That academic path prepared me for working in government, and specifically on this issue, which embodies the intersection of science, economics, culture, and policy. It is a true honor to join Let’s Move!, and I am grateful to the incredible support from the University community that contributed to this moment.”
Although admitted to the MBA program at Stanford, Duswalt couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work in the White House on a project so close to her heart. She was passionate about civic engagement as an undergraduate, and of course, was encouraged to follow her passions. We have no doubts that when the time comes and she reapplies to Stanford, that she’ll be admitted once again as a Truman Scholar.
In 2009, Duswalt was awarded a Truman Scholarship. The selection committee recognized her interest and leadership in the fields of childhood nutrition, behavioral and culinary science, and American food culture. She’s particularly interested in investigating ways to remedy the increasing rates of obesity in American children. Her new duties in the White House Office of the First Lady will engage all her interests and skills.
Duswalt, a native of Rosenberg, Texas, and the first in her family to attend college, was one of 60 Scholars selected from among 601 candidates in 2009. Each Truman Scholarship provides up to $30,000 for graduate study. Scholars also receive priority admission and supplemental financial aid at some premier graduate institutions, leadership training, career and graduate school counseling, and special internship opportunities within the federal government.
Recipients are United States citizens, have outstanding leadership potential and communication skills, are in the top quarter of their class and are committed to careers in government or non-profits. In return for the funding, Truman Scholars pledge to serve for three to seven years in the public service sector after receiving their graduate degrees.
Marissa’s Plan II/Dean’s Scholars Honors thesis, supervised by Dr. John Stephen Hursting, Chair of the Department of Nutritional Sciences, studied the relationships between nutrition, metabolism and disease prevention. Marissa investigated how differences in the saccharide ratio comprising the carbohydrate portion of the American diet lead to obesity and metabolic dysfunction.
Duswalt is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa. She was a 2007 Temple Scholar, a Plan II Distinguished Graduate and a Presidential Scholar. As an undergraduate, she initiated a service-learning initiative to integrate civic engagement into the Plan II curriculum, and worked at the Health Promotion Resource Center as a Nutrition Educator.
It is a dream of many honors deans and directors that their offices might one day be able to coordinate honors curriculum, undergraduate research, internships, and study-abroad under one roof.
That day has already arrived for the Honors College at East Tennessee State University, located in Johnson City, right on the border between Tennessee and Virginia.
Although the bedrock University Honors Scholars program was established in 1993, the advent of the Honors College in 2005 brought with it two more honors options along with the consolidation of all the above functions within the college. Dean Rebecca Ann Pyles reports that graduation rates are high among the more than 400 students enrolled in all honors options–86–88 percent of students graduate in honors.
The University Honors Scholars program enrolls only about 22 students a year. Minimum entrancement requirements include an SAT of 1290 and GPA of 3.5. The UHS program extends across all four years and, like the other two options at the college, requires the completion of an honors thesis.
UHS students complete four year-long seminars, two in the freshmen year and two more as sophomores. The freshman seminars focus on English and philosophy. Students consider alternatives to their own views, often from global perspectives, and then reflect on how their own perspectives might be seen by others.
In the sophomore year, much of the emphasis is on the interrelationships of the sciences and the broader culture. Students not only learn about the most significant scientific concepts but also the ethical responsibilities that accompany many scientific advances.
Sophomores also take a turn toward the creative side. Students study and participate in studio and performing arts, learning the importance of aesthetics to all elements of human culture.
Juniors participate in the unique Honors Appalachian course, where they study the history, arts, economics, and politics of the region.
Senior honors work focuses on research and the completion of the honors thesis.
The Midway Scholars option enrolls transfer students with an associate’s degree or at least 30 hours of credit, and with a minimum GPA of 3.5. Midway Scholars take three honors or honors option courses and must complete a research course and write a thesis.
The Honors in Discipline (HID) option also requires honors or honors option coursework along with a thesis in the major, or “discipline,” of the student. Currently, seventeen departments are involved in the HID program.
All honors students can take advantage of Washington internships coordinated by the honors office, and can participate in international study, also through the honors college.
Honors students at ETSU also have the option of living on the sixth floor of Governors Hall, new in 2007. The hall includes space for more than 500 students who share double rooms with private baths.
