Category Archives: Honors Curriculum

Bill Gates on College: More Hybrid Courses, Less ‘Marking Time’

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In the most recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, philanthropist Bill Gates says that even though education “has not been substantially changed by the internet” thus far, the future is likely to bring fundamental shifts toward online instruction.

Gates advocates greater use of hybrid courses, defined by the Chronicle as those “in which students watch videos from superstar professors as ‘homework’ and use class time for group projects and other interactive activities.”

Even if such an approach might be effective for some colleges or programs, what applicability might online classes have for honors programs, which emphasize the interactions of students and professors in small classes?   Should honors programs be on the cutting edge of integrating online learning with instruction in relatively small classes?

But, if so, how would the effectiveness of such honors experiments be assessed?  Gates acknowledges (and laments) that there is a lack of evidence showing “where…technology is the best and where face-to-face is the best.”  One big problem, he told the Chronicle, is that higher education “is a field without a kind of clear metric that you can experiment [with] and see if you’re still continuing to achieve [increased learning].

“You’d think people would say, ‘We take people with low SATs and make them really good lawyers.’ Instead they say, ‘We take people with very high SATs and we don’t really know what we create, but at least they’re smart when they show up here, so maybe they still are when we’re done with them.’”

Clearly, “maybe” is not good enough for Gates and other reformers.  Here it seems that public university honors programs can help in developing curricula that improve measurable skills and that facilitate the transfer of those improvements to the larger university population, including some students who do not have “very high SAT’s.”

Honors curricula are recognized as being highly effective in developing and improving critical thinking and writing skills, both of which are emphasized by the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) tests used by some colleges to measure improvement in important skills between the freshmen and senior years.  (The Gates Foundation has connections with the Council on Assistance to Education (CAE), which develops CLA testing.)

Another advantage of honors programs is that the course work and activities of honors students are never entirely segregated from the larger university and inevitably have an impact beyond honors.  Therefore, honors programs are and have been a natural vehicle for the transfer of enhanced instruction  to the larger university.

A key element in this process would be the assessment of non-honors students who have frequent classes or projects with honors students in order to understand how the interaction is beneficial.  The next, and much more difficult, step would be to determine what parts of the process could be used with similar effectiveness in a hybrid context.

The hybrid model that Gates is exploring can sound a bit like the communication and training structure of an international high-tech company: we watch the CEO in a series of online videos; we note his insights and instructions; and we meet and discuss the ways in which they might be developed, used, and enhanced.  Then we are graded according to our progress.

But given the hard choices by some public universities, the use of more online instruction might make the advantages of an honors education more readily transferable to the larger university if online lectures and instruction were incorporated into the curriculum, provided that at least some of the assumed cost savings could then be used to fund more frequent small-group discussions and projects.

The founder of Microsoft also believes that many students are marking time in school because “if you’re trying to get through in the appropriate amount of time, you’ll find yourself constantly not able to get yourself into various required courses.”

The Chronicle asked Gates if, in response to this problem, he might “create pressure to make universities into a kind of job-training area without that citizenship focus of that broad liberal arts degree.”

“But I’m the biggest believer in taking a lot of different things,” he said.  “And so, yes, it’s important to distinguish when people are taking extra courses that broaden them as a citizen and that would be considered a plus versus they’re just marking time because they’re being held up because the capacity doesn’t exist in the system to let them do what they want to do.  If you go through the student survey data, it’s mostly the latter.”

Whatever effect online instruction may have on university curricula, Gates says that “…obviously, anything that has to do with the universities is going to be figured out by people who have worked in universities, and it’s going to be piloted in universities.”

And in that effort, honors learning innovations could lead the way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honors Challenge: Balancing Core Curricula with AP and IB Credits

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Many honors professionals struggle to balance their primary goal of providing a strong, cohesive honors curriculum across all four years with the often liberal policies of their universities in granting credit for AP and IB courses that may replace essential honors courses.

The problem is especially acute during the first two years and “often leaves honors programs scampering to find strategies for a robust experience in the early years of an honors education,” according to an interesting article in the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. 

Honors programs have responded in several ways, making it important for parents and prospective students to research the individual policies of the universities and honors programs if obtaining credit for AP and IB achievement is important, as it typically is.

The article, “The Role of Advanced Placement Credit in Honors Education,” was written by Maureen H. Kelleher, Lauren C. Pouchak, and Melissa L. Lulay, all affiliated at the time with the Northeastern University Honors Program.

They argue that “the impact of AP credit directly affects many honors programs by presenting challenges to general education requirements as they are currently conceived and delivered at colleges and universities.”

Another study by the University of California System showed that credit for AP and IB tests did not, in general, cause students to graduate early, but instead allowed them to “take a larger number of advanced courses or to take more courses in more subject areas than they otherwise would have been able to do.”

Students also use the credits to reduce their semester loads while pursuing a thesis or other demanding course work, or as a replacement for a dropped course.

The impact of AP and IB credits is also apparent in another important feature of honors education: honors communities.  “As…honors programs…move toward developing living/learning communities,” the NCHC article says, “the lack of entry-level shared courses prevents critical connections among entering students as well as the opportunity to develop a common learning experience.”

According to the article, the honors response to the AP/IB issue has usually followed one or  more of the following paths:

  • Diversification of courses, so that lower-divisions courses are so distinctive that “AP doesn’t line up with what goes on in the classroom.”  This may also take the form of developing more honors courses specific to the major that are beyond the general education requirements.
  • Refuse to count AP credit at all for honors courses.  The article quotes an honors dean: “We do not give honors credit for high school work.”  The students would receive elective or non-honors credit, however, in accordance with university policy.
  • Allow AP credit for honors courses that count as general education courses, but do not allow AP credit for honors courses above that level.

All of this makes honors advising a specialized and complicated task, given that universities as a whole generally like the AP and IB credits because “they increase a university’s yield.”

After earning AP or IB credit, many students want to jump into advanced work in the major at once.  The problem with this is that it may foreclose on other options that the student may have discovered by participating in the broader, more interdisciplinary curriculum.

This results in a phenomenon which the researchers call “narrowing.”  They argue that some students focused on entering their major quickly face an “existential crisis” by the third year.  “They have met all the requirements of their major and have no idea what other courses might also interest them,” and they feel odd, as juniors or seniors, about the idea of “shopping around” among entry-level courses.

Further complicating the matter is that AP courses, even if credit is earned, do not always provide the same rigorous preparation as the honors course would do, especially in the more selective and demanding honors programs.

The authors conclude that while AP and IB courses “may not better serve high school curricula, they have less value at the college level.”

 

 

 

 

Ohio University Honors Tutorial College: Unique, Creative, Productive

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The name captures the uniqueness of honors education at Ohio University: Honors Tutorial College. The college has 203 professors, called “tutors,” who work with about 240 honors tutorial students either in very small groups or one-on-one.

The college is one of the fifteen additional public university honors programs that we hope to include in the 2014 edition of our Review . The programs are offered at the following universities: Colorado State, Florida State, George Mason, Kansas State, Kentucky, LSU, Miami of Ohio, Ohio University, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Temple,Tennessee, UC Riverside, and Utah.

For anyone who may associate the word “tutor” with those persons who assist struggling students, it is time to banish that conception from your mind. The students at the HTC are not there to catch up but to leap farther ahead.

Students at the honors college–officially called “tutees”– can choose from among 32 courses of study, and each discipline has a director of studies, a full-time professor in the chosen department who coordinates honors tutorials.

The college web site has an essay called “Something Completely Different,” and prospective students are urged to read it. “The purpose of this document,” the essay begins, “is to give some guidance about how HTC is different and why those differences matter. If you get one thing out of this piece of paper it should be the following: for 99% of the individuals who end up matriculating in the Honors Tutorial College learning by tutorial is vastly different from any other form of educational methodology they have encountered.”
[Emphasis in original.]

Although located in the town of Athens, about an hour and a half southeast of Columbus, Ohio University is less influenced by its Athenian namesake than by the two most famous universities in England:

“The Honors Tutorial College (HTC) is based on the centuries old tutorial system of undergraduate education developed at Oxford and Cambridge universities in Great Britain. Ohio University is the only institution in the United States with a degree-granting college incorporating all the essential features of the traditional tutorial system.

“Tutees gain important fundamental knowledge, hone essential skills, and begin to develop an understanding of what inspires them.

“Tutors often have their own intellectual horizons expanded by the observations and questions of students who bring fresh perspectives to familiar subjects.”

The tutorial process puts the student at center stage, with a great responsibility for showing creativity, initiative, persistence, and precision. They must learn not only the material at hand but also the minds and habits of their tutors, a process which requires the sort of creative anticipation and planning that is the frequent task of accomplished people in their careers.

Students must meet with tutors at least once a week for a minimum of 50 minutes. But do not think that this makes the tutorial classes easier. The preparation and planning necessary for each meeting can be daunting.

Discussing research papers with tutors is a major part of the work, placing a high premium on the ability to organize and articulate reasoned positions. In the lab context, students work directly with research scientists and lab supervisors, often on projects that have immediate impact.

One such student was Nyssa Adams, a recent graduate of the HTC, and now a student in the combined MD/Ph.D program at the Baylor University School of Medicine, one of the nation’s top medical schools. While at the HTC, Nyssa began working on research to improve cancer drugs used to fight ovarian cancer.

In writing papers and discussing them in tutorials, Nyssa developed an increased “respect for research,” not only the difficulties involved, but the exciting challenges it offered to her. Having begun college with an interest in a different field, she made the change to research, giving credit to Jan Hodson of the honors staff who helped Nyssa to realize that “there’s no reason for me not to succeed.”

Working so closely with professors gives students interested in science multiple opportunities “to find your lab” and “dig into research,” Nyssa says. Her own digging made her one of the outstanding undergrad researchers at HTC, and a student/scholar with the confidence and ability to earn the two doctorates she is seeking.

The HTC offers its own degrees, including degrees in business, fine arts, and journalism. The curriculum, while flexible and reliant on individual choices, typically turns out to be extensive and demanding: most students finish with approximately 200 quarter hours, of which about 48 are in tutorials or seminars.

The minimum admission requirements for the HTC are ACT/30, SAT/1300/GPA top 10%. The actual averages for HTC admits is SAT verbal 683, quantitative 664, for a total of 1347.
Unlike many honors programs, the HTC makes most of the information about the college readily available on the web site.

HTC students have the option to live in the Read-Johnson Scholars Complex on the East Green of the campus, an air-conditioned central location with dining and laundry facilities nearby. One excellent feature is a sink in each room.

Students may also live in Hoover Hall on the South Green, perhaps not as centrally located but still a great option if students prefer “mod” room arrangements–a combination of single and double rooms with a central living area, all shared by six students.

Oklahoma State Honors College: An Excellent Option

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The Honors College at Oklahoma State University has many strong features, including an honors curriculum that makes the college competitive with the leading programs we have already identified in our research.

The college is one of the fifteen additional public university honors programs that we hope to include in the next edition of our Review . The programs are offered at the following universities: Colorado State, Florida State, George Mason, Kansas State, Kentucky, LSU, Miami of Ohio, Ohio University, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Temple, Tennessee, and Utah.

We have noticed that even though the average size of the honors programs we survey is about 1,800 students, some of the best, in terms of curriculum and honors features, are smaller, with approximately 1,000 students enrolled. The honors college enrolls 1,299 students, which may be close to the optimum size for coordinating honors curricula, housing, and advising.

The curriculum at the honors college requires completion of 39 honors credit hours for the Honors College Degree, “the highest academic distinction that may be earned by undergraduates at Oklahoma State University.”

The Honors College Degree includes the 21-hour requirement for the General Honors Award (one honors track) and the 12-hour Departmental or College Honors Award (the departmental honors track, which includes a thesis and oral defense). Additional hours for students earning the Honors College Degree may come from more undergraduate research, study abroad, internships, community service, or AP credits, on a 1:3 ratio. Recipients of this highest degree also give a public presentation related to their thesis.

Another strength of the Honors College is the experience of its director and staff. The director is Dr. Robert Spurrier, who is a past president of the National College Honors Council (NCHC). Assistant Director Jessica Roark is chair of the NCHC Honors Advising Committee. In fact, all six members of the honors staff are graduates of an honors college or honors program. As far as we know, no other college or program can make this claim.

Oklahoma State grads also perform well in the attainment of prestigious undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships, especially the undergrad Goldwater awards in the STEM subjects, the postgrad Truman awards in a variety of disciplines, and Udall awards, which are mostly related to environmental studies.

If Oklahoma State had been included in the current edition of our book that evaluated 50 leading university honors programs, it would have tied for seventh in Udall awards and eleventh in Truman awards.

Regarding entrance requirements, the minimum score and GPA for entering freshmen is an ACT composite score of 27 (SAT 1220 on critical reading and mathematics only) with a 3.75 high school grade point average (weighted grade point averages certified by the high school may be used) if the application is submitted by February 1. Students who fall just short of these criteria may submit an essay in response to one of several prompts provided by The Honors College.

“Transfer students and continuing OSU students) are admitted on the basis of their college grade point averages (fewer than 60 credit hours, 3.30; 60-93 credit hours, 3.40; 94 or more credit hours, 3.50).

“Honors articulation agreements are in place with a number of two-year colleges in Oklahoma, and transfer honors credit from other institutions is accepted as well.”

The college offers approximately 80 honors sections each semester, “including both honors sections of regular departmental course offerings (Calculus, Chemistry, English Literature, History, Philosophy, etc.) and special HONR-prefix honors seminars (most of which are interdisciplinary and team-taught)…”

Up to 300 honors students may choose to live in the honors dorm, Stout Hall, which features in-room sinks in combination with traditional hall baths, except for the fourth floor, which has single rooms. Stout Hall is a smoke and alcohol-free facility. Stout Coffee and Cafe is located in the basement and serves coffee, sandwiches, soups, and salads. There are also honors classrooms in Stout Hall. Stout Hall would have easily scored above the median in our metric for honors housing if the honors college had been included in our current survey.

UW Honors Students Study with Former Inmates, Break Stereotypes

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Questioning stereotypes is an important part of the college experience, as UW Honors students learned yet again by attending classes with former prison inmates.

Below is the latest in our series of campus news articles that speak to the influence that honors students and programs have on their universities and larger communities. Previously, we published another story about students in the University of Oregon’s Clark Honors College who attended classes in prison with inmates who wanted to pursue higher education.

This post is an excerpt of an article by Catherine O’Donnell, who writes for the University of Washington News and Information service.

When Dolphy Jordan was 16, he was sentenced to 26 years in prison for first-degree murder, and served 21. He spent much of it in a six-by-nine-foot cell because that was the usual space for an inmate.

When discharged two years ago, Jordan was hungry for education.

During winter quarter, Jordan and other former inmates like him were in a class with people equally hungry for education: honors students at the UW.

And now the group, 10 former prisoners and eight honors students, has become the Post-Prison Community Collaboration Project. As part of its work, the group in April put on “People with Convictions,” an evening in Kane Hall featuring a discussion of prison life, a dramatic presentation and a dance performance that includes former prisoners.

“The Post-Prison class grew out of jury duty that became a life-changing event,” said Claudia Jensen, a UW affiliate professor who specializes in Russian music but ran the class as part of the Honors program.

Things started in February 2011, when Jensen’s husband, Brad Clem, was a juror in a case of three young men charged in a drug deal that included assault. He and Jensen were struck by the disparities between the young men and their own children who were about the same age but had had many more opportunities. This led Clem and Jensen to a post-trial conversation with defense attorney James Bible, and eventually to the Post-Prison Education Program, where they now volunteer as tutors.

The program helps former inmates with post-secondary education, and includes wraparound services – help with things like books, rent, groceries and child care.

Jensen, 57, taught her first honors course in spring 2011. She was struck by similarities between those students and the ones in the Post-Prison Program: “They want to get every drop out of their education. Everything I assign, they read; everything I ask, they do.”

Jensen suggested the post-prison class to Julie Villegas, associate director of the UW Honors
Program, and Rachel Vaughn, now director of the UW’s Carlson Leadership and Public Service Center, who supported and helped plan it.

Lizzie Reid, 47, is a member of the Post-Prison class and its resulting collaborative. She served three sentences, a total of almost five years, on drug charges. Reid is now in her fourth semester at Green River Community College in Auburn. She’s nailed a 4.0 average each semester, aiming for the University of Washington, a law degree and a career as a public interest attorney.
In a series of reflections for the class, Reid wrote that the grades “helped me to have more faith in myself, and to begin believing that things could truly be different.”

Jensen and the students recently submitted a 13-page summary of the Post-Prison class to the Harvard Educational Review for an upcoming book on the school-to-prison pipeline. Reid contributed an essay about how an abusive childhood made her lose interest in education. It grew out of one of her reflections.

Having availed himself of the Post-Prison Education Program, 39-year-old Jordan attends South Seattle Community College, aiming for bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work and a career helping kids at risk.

“I’ll be able to relate to kids,” he said. “Convey my experience so as to prevent them from making the same mistakes I did.” Meantime, Jordan works part-time as volunteer coordinator for the Post-Prison Education Program.

Both UW and Post-Prison students realized they have the same dreams about education making their lives rich and good. They also got rid of stereotypes. Some honors students were wary of associating with people who had served time but wound up organizing such things as a girls’ night out, not part of the class but rather, on their own. The former prisoners had wondered whether they’d be accepted, whether they’d fit in college. “But I found that I could fit. I did,” said 42-year-old Gina McConnell.

Ben Horst, a 20-year-old UW honors student, wrote about things he didn’t expect: “We both came here to learn, we wind up teaching each other more than we ever thought possible. We shattered stereotypes from the moment we sat down.”

UMass Honors Student Works Against Quake Damage in China

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In our continuing series that shows how honors students influence their universities and beyond, we include the following from UMass Amherst. The story shows the importance of undergraduate research programs, such as the research assistantships offered at UMass.

“The 2008 Sichuan earthquake was the deadliest earthquake to hit China since 1976. It had a magnitude of 7.9. On May 12, 2008, during the quake’s two-minute long main tremor, nearly 80% of the buildings in Wenchuan County were destroyed. Hardest hit were the poorer, rural villages where many of the buildings were constructed before the 1976 Tangshan earthquake when seismic design codes were introduced. Six months after the earthquake, the central government announced that it would spend $146.5 billion USD over a three-year period to rebuild the areas affected.

“Civil engineering major Zhiren Zhu ’13, who calls both Amherst and Beijing home, cites this earthquake as the primary motivation for pursuing his field of study. He recalls watching news reports and noticing that although thousands of school buildings and hospitals had collapsed, structurally strong government office buildings were left standing. He explains,”Strong structures can be created, but they were not affordable. Thus, I wished to create a smarter structural system that can be applied to every ordinary house around the world and save more lives from natural disasters.” He aspires to create safe, sustainable, and affordable structural systems built to withstand inevitable natural disasters.

“Noting the poor structural integrity of schools and hospitals and the severe geological and hydrological problems caused by construction of dams on the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, Zhiren says, “…society wants to see rapid development of infrastructures, [and] engineers often sacrifice safety and sustainability.” Structures are being built, he observes, but not necessarily designed. In the hope to someday address these problems and similar ones all over the world, Zhiren chose to attend UMass Amherst and enter Commonwealth Honors College.

“Although intrigued by structural engineering, Zhiren also has a genuine interest in the fields of environmental and water resources engineering and enthusiastically welcomes opportunities that require him to apply his knowledge to real-life situations. The chance to complete a Commonwealth Honors College Research Assistant Fellowship that combines his interests in engineering and the environment has truly been integrative, challenging, and rewarding for Zhiren.

“Attending a research university and completing a rigorous honors curriculum is not simply a résumé-builder for this ambitious student, passionate musician, and dedicated international student orientation leader. Having lived in Japan, Norway and China as well as the United States growing up, Zhiren was constantly adapting to new environments. Now, in his own way, Zhiren is contributing directly to the community where he lives and studies.

“Zhiren applied for and was awarded a $1,000 Research Assistant Fellowship to study wastewater treatment under the guidance of Professor Chul Park for a project called, “The Development of New Wastewater Treatment Technology for Reduction of Sludge and Nutrients.” Zhiren is part of a research team that plans to present a pilot-scale demonstration of improved wastewater treatment technology to officials at the Amherst Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“Disposal of sludge generated during wastewater treatment most often occurs through incineration or ocean-dumping, methods which can lead to ocean water contamination, air pollution, and global warming. Zhiren Zhu and Professor Park agree that currently there are few alternatives for basic methods of sludge treatment. Together, they are developing a new process that has been shown to reduce sludge generation and remove nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus.

“Zhiren explains, ‘Since interactions between microorganisms are the most natural and sustainable means of nutrient removal, we would like to use algae instead of chemicals to achieve our goal” and believes that now is the time for “engineers to consciously emulate nature’s genius and treat nature as our mentor.’

“With growing global concerns over the impacts of climate change, environmental degradation, and resource competition, students like Zhiren Zhu advance basic infrastructures to improve the environment and life quality of human beings. He admits, ‘Civil engineers may not be able to create iPhones or rockets, but we can still influence people’s lives by providing better quality water, safer traffic systems, stronger buildings and a cleaner environment.’

“Zhiren’s parents are both university professors in China and he predicts that he will follow in their footsteps and become a professor himself someday. ‘I simply can’t imagine a life without school,’ he says. “It just feels perfect to learn something every day and get to understand the world better.’

Penn State Schreyer Enhances First-Year Experience

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Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College will implement next Fall a new program that provides more community and continuity for entering freshmen. The First-Year Experience will also increase the honors credit hour requirement for the freshman year. The interesting story by Daily Collegian writer Aria Moyer is below.

By Aria Moyer
Collegian Staff Writer

Incoming Schreyer freshmen will see familiar faces throughout their first academic year.

Beginning next fall, incoming Schreyer Honors College freshmen will be required to participate in the First-Year Experience — a sequence of general educational writing and speaking classes with the same professors and classmates during both the fall and spring semesters.

The program intends to prevent incoming Schreyer freshman from feeling lost and overwhelmed in different required Writing/Speaking classes, Schreyer Honors College Associate Dean Arun Upneja said.

Upneja said he’s “very excited” to offer this new and inventive format in a course.

Students will be required to take English/Communications Arts and Sciences 137H (Rhetoric and Civil Life I) in the fall followed by English/Communications Arts and Sciences 138T (Rhetoric and Civil Life II) in the spring, which also satisfies the first-year seminar requirement — 137H is the prerequisite for 138T.

Upneja said these plans have been discussed for a year now through wide consultation with both students and faculty of Schreyer Honors College and the College of Liberal Arts, and feels glad to finally see it all come together.

In the past the only similar combination of classes offered at Penn State has been Liberal Arts 101H (Honors Rhetoric and Civic Life).

Upneja said this was a great class for a single semester, but it lacked the combination of credits and community setting.

“This is where the first-year experience would pick up as both an enjoyment for students and sufficient credits,” he said.

The First-Year Experience also ups the number of credits required for a scholar’s freshman and sophomore year from 18 to 21.

With the inspiration from this course, the honors college implemented the First-Year Experience, which allows for a combination of both first year writing and public speaking for a total of six honors credits, rather than four.

Upneja said that he doesn’t view this idea as an increase in credit or requirement but more as a “sequence of courses. ”

The goal of the combination class, he said is to simply keep the same group of students with the same professors — and it will be up to students to make sure they follow the requirement.

Upneja said he understands it will be difficult to maintain the same scheduled class with the same group of people for both fall and spring semester, but he encourages students to do so.

Schreyer’s Honors College Dean Christian Brady said that he feels this “coherent systematic offering” shows the flexibility of the honors college in a more modern setting.

He added that this is a great opportunity to develop students of integrity through a sense of community and ethics. Brady also mentioned that these classes will only be offered to honors college freshmen and aspiring Paterno Fellows.

Ole Miss, SMB Honors College Thesis Can Equal Jobs

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This story about the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at Ole Miss shows how the undergraduate thesis required of honors students can help them in their search for postgraduate employment–and how the honors focus on undergrad research can be a model for the university as a whole as it seeks to find the best jobs for grads.

Students Get a Mentor for Engaging in Intellectual Curiosity

By Rebecca Lauck Cleary
April 23, 2012

OXFORD, Miss. – The undergraduate thesis is a hallmark of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi. Now, students will have someone available to assist them with getting started on their projects.

That person is Jason Ritchie, the new assistant dean of undergraduate research at the SMBHC.

Exploratory research has been a required component of the Honors College since its creation in 1997. Most students begin their research in the junior year, leading to a thesis in the senior year, although some students begin earlier. The thesis is an opportunity for students to devote time to exploring topics that particularly interest them in their fields; it’s a chance to learn to ask questions as the discipline asks them and to answer those questions using the methodology of the discipline.

Undergraduate research is vital to a student’s training, said Honors College Dean Douglass Sullivan-González.

“The SMBHC is deeply committed to the role of independent research in preparing our students to be citizen scholars,” Sullivan-González said. “When the leaders of the future start tackling tough issues, we want them to be trained to look closely and clearly at what’s really going on when things look ‘knotty.’ We expect our students to be leaders in finding creative, effective solutions to public challenges.”

Since 2000, Ritchie has been assistant and associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Ole Miss and was named the Cora Lee Graham Outstanding Teacher of Freshmen in 2007. Before that, he obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1994 at the University of California at San Diego, where he performed undergraduate research on conducting polymers. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1998 from the University of Texas at Austin, where he studied the surface chemistry of high-temperature superconductors. He then went on to post-doc at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, studying electrochemistry in rigid polymers.

He has a strong interest in the leadership development of younger chemists, and he believes that serving as assistant dean of undergraduate research will allow him to help develop the careers of students across the university.

“The students come here and it’s intimidating,” Ritchie said. “They need help in the basic process of how to get started with research. I will put together a database of faculty projects so they can look at it and find their interests, and I will give them resources and advice about how to approach faculty members. They may be scared, but I will help them open up the conversation.”

Even the brightest students may be ruffled by the thesis requirement, and Ritchie hopes to alleviate their fears and work with them to find both internal and external research opportunities.

“When a graduate goes on a job interview, they don’t talk about their GPA, they talk about their thesis project, so it really sets them apart and marks them as a strong and independent thinker,” he said. “I personally learned far more doing my undergraduate thesis than I did in class. The honors thesis is a capstone for a student’s undergraduate years, bringing together everything they have learned the past four years.”

Ritchie will work not only with Honors College students, but those across all areas of campus.

“We think this unparalleled learning experience should be available to all students at the University of Mississippi,” Sullivan-González said. “Much of what Dr. Ritchie will undertake will be geared toward increasing and supporting undergraduate research campuswide, not just in the SMBHC.”

The most important lesson of the thesis may be how to stick with a tough assignment when there is only the students’ own character and passions to keep them going. This May, 130 SMBHC seniors are en route to be commissioned, having completed all Honors College requirements, including the thesis.

For more information on the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, go to http://www.honors.olemiss.edu/.

Campus News–Clark Honors, U of Oregon

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This is the first in a series of reports from campus newspapers and blogs, featuring honors news as the students see it. We chose the story below because, in addition to being an excellence piece of journalism, it also shows how honors innovations can enrich the lives of honors students, improve the communities in which they live, and serve as pilot programs that can be expanded to include non-honors students as well.

Today’s post is from the Oregon Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon. This truly outstanding news feature story about students from Clark Honors College attending prison classes with inmates is by staff writer Emily Schiola. Congratulations to her, and to Clark Honors for participating in such an interesting and valuable program.

By Emily Schiola
Published March 1, 2012

University Student David Liggins, a former Oregon State Penitentiary inmate, is now in his second term at the University of Oregon studying psychology. Liggins, 35, who was incarcerated for 14 years, participated in the Inside Out program that pairs inmates and University students in college level courses.

“The program helps guys get out of that institutional mode,” said Liggins, who credits the program for keeping him inspired to continue his education.

Every week, 24 students climb a long staircase and enter a small room in the Oregon State Penitentiary filled with bookcases and chairs. Light from a small window shines on the pale yellow walls, casting rectangular shadows throughout the room. They discuss “Crime and Punishment.”

The course is part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, and at the end of the three-hour class, 12 students pass a row of bars and security checks to board a bus headed home. For the other 12, they already are home.

A year ago, David Liggins was one of those students and would’ve returned to his cell to begin reading for the next class. Today, he is a student at the University and an intern for the program.

Liggins appeared in front of ASUO Senate last fall seeking a grant for an expansion of the program. The request was granted last week — approving $20,000 in additional funding.
“This program made me want to get away from being institutionalized,” Liggins says.

Since its birth in 2007, the program has sent classes of roughly a dozen students in the Clark Honors College into the Oregon State Penitentiary to take a class with inmates. Class topics have ranged from literature to sociology. The $20,000 expansion approved last week will now allow the program to become available for all students at the University, not only honors students.

Liggins says he owes a lot of his success to the Inside-Out Program, which sends university students, or “outside students,” into a prison to take a class with inmates who are called “inside students.” It is offered at over 120 universities in 37 states across the country.
One of his favorite classes was a literature class about ethics and morals with one of the program’s pioneers, University professor Steven Shankman.

Shankman was the first professor from the University to teach a class with the program. One of his responsibilities was interviewing the inside students.

“Those guys were so hungry for education,” Shankman said. “Their minds are so open, and their motives are so pure.”

Most classes in the program were criminal justice courses, but Shankman thought a literature and ethics class could be just as impacting.

“We were forced to meet ethics and morals head on and question ourselves,” Liggins said. “It is really touching to tie life with that experience.”

Shankman explained that it was the inside students who were the most nervous to participate in the class.

“Prison is not very good for self-esteem,” he said. “But once they saw how welcoming and nonjudgmental the outside students were, things really changed.”

Liggins spoke to how refreshing it was to see the University students once a week. “It is very easy to become isolated,” he said. “To see faces of people who are excited about the future brings fresh life.”

He also talked about the effect the program has on people who are going to be in prison for the rest of their lives.

“For the ‘lifers’ it means so much to them,” Liggins said. “There is a lack of life in there, and to get the chance to learn with people who are so hopeful is very touching.”
Liggins is spending his time completing his second term as a psychology major and taking care of his teenage daughter. He is committed to gaining an education and inspiring other students like himself.

He hopes to someday work with children of incarcerated parents. Liggins said children often follow in their parents’ footsteps, and he wants to work to prevent that.

“It is something that is very dear to my heart because I’m a single parent,” he said.
Liggins hopes the grant from the DFC will make it possible to touch more lives. ASUO Chief of Staff and former Inside-Out Program participant Kerry Snodgrass is overjoyed with the expansion.

“This has been a huge initiative of the ASUO Executive,” she said. “Ben and Katie started working on it as soon as they got into office.”
Snodgrass described the experience as sobering and said it challenged her preconceived ideas about inmates.

“Being in that space with so many students who are so excited to receive an education just made me value my education so much more,” Snodgrass said. “It makes me want to fight harder for education in this state.”

With this money, the program also plans to send interested faculty members to a week-long training in Pennsylvania. It includes courses on teaching methods and philosophies as well as courses in safety.

“It is really important to be aware of students’ safety,” Northwest Regional Program assistant for Inside-Out Katie Dwyer said. “This is not only physical safety, but emotional safety as well.”

Dwyer was part of the first class offered in 2007 when she was only a freshman. She said she soon realized the importance of the program and has been involved ever since.

“If you are the kind of student hoping for more intensity of conversation, then this is an experience like no other,” she said. “People’s opinions and lives are very present during the class.”

Classes will be offered to all University students who are accepted next winter term. The number of classes depends on department interest and is not known at this time.

Liggins encourages anyone who gets the chance to take the class. He says the program changed his life.

“This program gives you a voice on the inside,” Liggins said. “It makes you feel like a human again.”

Honors Curriculum: Flexibility vs. Structure

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Common sense suggests that there would be three basic types of honors curricula: structured, flexible, or a combination of the two. And that is the case, based on our review of the curriculum descriptions on the 50 websites of the universities under review. It is evident that any of the three models can work effectively, but parents and prospective students might want to consider the following information before making a final choice of an honors college or program:

1. Our evaluation and the resulting scores are based primarily on the quantity of honors hours required or typically taken by students. There may be a qualitative element in our evaluations when it is clear from other published data or from exchanges with honors directors that certain features that may not be prominent on the website are worthy of emphasis. A prime example of this would be a national recognized undergraduate research program. Yet, generally, curricula with a high percentage of required honors courses do better in our evaluation, and most of these combine flexibility with a reasonably understandable structure. Most of these also allow students the honors perk of priority registration, at least for honors courses, and this makes it easier for honors students to complete the more stringent requirements.

2. Programs with flexible curricula also score well if the total hour requirement or typical attainment level is high, even absent a strongly-defined structure. Programs with flexible curricula also correlate better with other excellence factors (e.g., prestigious scholarships) if the flexibility is coupled with priority registration. And this makes sense, too, because a program that allows honors students to literally write their own tickets must enable those students to pick their preferred courses as freely as possible, especially if the total number of required honors courses is high. Allowing honors students to contract for honors credit while taking non-honors courses may be an effective way to avoid offering priority registration, but it is not clear to us, at least, that the contract option actually produces an equivalent result.

3. The programs that are not assigned high scores in the curriculum category usually have a small honors requirement–say, only 14%-21% of courses counted toward graduation are honors courses, including departmental honors courses.

4. Parents and prospective students should be aware, however, that programs that are part of universities with a strong engineering focus have a significantly lower average of total honors requirements, about 19%, and as low as 14% in some schools. This lower quantity results from the time required of engineering students to meet their major requirements, so if the student is in engineering, a lower honors requirement may be regarded as a positive rather than a negative factor.

5. Final thoughts: priority registration is more important–and more justifiable–when more than 27 total semester hours of honors courses are required for graduation. And in general, especially for non-engineering majors, quantity does matter.