Salisbury University
Honors Task Force Report
December, 2010
Honors Task Force Members:
Stephen Adams, Perdue School of Business
Doug Dewitt, Seidel School of Education
Richard England, Director, Bellavance Honors Program
Lance Garmon, Fulton School of Liberal Arts
Batya Hyman, Seidel School of Education
Miguel Mitchell, Henson School of Science and Technology
Maarten Pereboom, Dean, Fulton School of Liberal Arts
Melanie Perreault, Interim Asst VP of Academic Affairs
Mike Scott, Henson School of Science and Technology
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Charge from the Provost ...... 4
Summary of Recommendations ...... 5
Current State of the Honors Program ...... 5
Successes of the Current Program ...... 9
Challenges ...... 10
Why an Honors College? ...... 11
Relationship to University Strategic Plan
and Strategic Enrollment Plan...... 13
Envisioning the SU Honors College...... 13
Facilities ...... 15
Incorporating All Four Schools ...... 16
Proposed Curriculum ...... 16
Staffing ...... 18
Benefits to the University as a Whole ...... 20
Proposed Budget ...... 21
Proposed Timeline ...... 22
Charge from the Provost:
After reviewing information about SU’s Honors program and those of our peer institutions, outline what we would need to do at SU to develop our program into an Honors College. The critical questions listed below may help to guide your thinking and planning:
1. What would an Honors College look like at Salisbury University? How would it be organized?
2. What resources would be needed: financial, human, facilities?
3. How would you expand the curriculum to broaden the appeal of honors across the four schools?
4. How do we get more faculty involved? How should they be rewarded (stipends, titles, travel, etc)?
5. How do we strategically recruit more students? What should be the proportion of freshmen to transfers each year?
6. How do we better integrate Honors into our institutional goals, i.e., closing the achievement gap, recruitment, retention/graduation, internationalization, civic engagement OR acknowledge contributions and participation?
Introduction: The Honors Task Force convened in August 2010 and began working on the Provost’s charge. The task force included members from each school, an academic dean, the director of the honors program, and a representative from the provost’s office. Our first task was to examine the current status of the Honors program at SU. Next, we reviewed literature on best practices for honors programs and colleges and began looking at our peer institutions. Based on this information, the task force agreed on a series of basic principles that would guide our work. The recommendations that follow are the result of our research and many discussions with colleagues at Salisbury and at other universities. We expect that this report is the beginning of a conversation that should take place across campus, not an end.
Summary of Recommendations:
1. The current Bellavance Honors Program should be transformed into an Honors College
2. The honors curriculum should be revised to meet NCHC standards
3. Manokin Hall should be identified as the Honors College Residence Hall
4. A new Faculty Senate committee, the Nationally Competitive Scholarships Committee, should be formed
5. A Coordinator of Nationally Competitive Scholarships should be identified
6. Academic scholarships and travel stipends should be established
7. Honors Fellows should be created
Current State of Honors Program at Salisbury University:
Current Mission Statement: The mission of SU’s Bellavance Honors program is to create a community of outstanding scholars and to provide them with exceptional liberal arts and science and research learning opportunities. We aim to respond to the needs of SU’s strongest and most motivated students by providing small, innovative seminars, extra-curricular colloquia and activities, and structured support for undergraduate research and other exceptional achievements beyond the classroom.
History: Salisbury University’s honors program began in 1980 with 20 freshman students. Since then, the program has grown so that approximately 250-300 students participate in honors each year. Last year more than 50 students graduated with Honors, and a similar number presented research at national, regional and on-campus conferences.
Dr. Tony Whall (English) was the director of the Honors program from 1980-2006, and was instrumental in improving its curriculum, building its community and securing its current home, the Bellavance Honors Center at the corner of Loblolly and Camden. In 1996 the Honors program was renamed for its great supporter, the late Thomas E. Bellavance, president of Salisbury State University, who left a bequest to help fund program needs.
The original curriculum was a team-taught great books series of courses: as the program grew, it became harder to staff this kind of class, and the curriculum evolved to offer unique courses, often offering general education credit, taught by professors from across the university. Over the last four years professors from all four schools have designed and taught Honors courses. Honors also promotes student research by requiring either a one-credit junior research project or a full thesis for all students graduating with Honors.
The Honors director was, at first, the sole faculty member attached to the Honors program. Dr. Whall taught in English and Honors, with a two-course download to administer the program. Since then, the Honors program has also gained an Assistant Director (1994) whose duties focused on student activities and mentoring. In 2006 the program gained a 10-hour share in an administrative assistant. In 2010, a graduate student assistant was added to the ranks.
Affiliations: The Honors Program maintains memberships in the National Collegiate Honors Council, the Northeast Regional Honors Council, and the Maryland Honors Council.
Current Curriculum: Honors courses are purpose built, unique classes, many of which carry general education credit. In keeping with the enhancement of the curriculum adopted by many departments of the university, Honors offers 4-credit seminars, in addition to 1-credit research or research preparation classes. The courses are:
HONR111 – Critical Thinking and Writing (General education I-A)
HONR112 – Issues in Social Sciences (General education III-B or C)
HONR211 – Issues in Humanities (General education III-A or C)
HONR212 – Issues in Natural Sciences (General education III-B
HONR311 – Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar (General education if crosslisted with a
gen ed bearing course, such as literature)
These courses (with the exception of HONR111) are essentially topics-style classes, with faculty creating classes in areas of their interest that satisfy the general education designation for a particular class. The classes are capped at 20 and are intended to be writing-intensive and discussion-driven. Students take an active part in their learning.
In addition there are several Honors research classes.
HONR312 Junior Research/ Creative project (1 credit)
HONR490 Honors Thesis Preparation (1 credit)
HONR495 Honors Thesis (3-4 credits depending on discipline)
Students who complete research in other departmental courses can often replace Honors research courses with their departmental work. The student must present or publish the results.
In order to serve both four-year and two-year (transfer) students, in 2006 the Honors program introduced a two-year curriculum to complement its traditional four-year offering. Students entering as freshmen are expected to take 20-21 credits of honors classes, while transfer students (or continuing students) with at least 47 credits are required to take 13 credits of honors work, including a thesis.
University Honors (20-21 credits):
HONR111 or HONR211
HONR112
HONR212
HONR311
AND EITHER HONR311 OR HONR490 (1 cr)
HONR312 (1 cr) HONR495 (Honors Thesis)
General Honors (13-14 credits) (for two year or upper-class students)
HONR311
Any other 4-credit HONR course (HONR111, 112, 211, 212, 311)
HONR312 (1 cr research project)
HONR490 (1 cr thesis prep class)
HONR495 Honors Thesis (3-4 cr)
Students in both Honors tracks must graduate with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 and complete an Honors outcomes portfolio (a series of essays reviewed by the associate director).
Current Honors Administration/Staffing:
Administration: The Honors program is run by a director and associate director. They are members of the faculty on 10-month contracts. The director has a 12-credit download, and teaches 12 credits for Honors each year. This is in part because the current director occupies the only PIN line dedicated to the Honors program. The associate director has a 12-credit download, and teaches 8 credits for English and 4-credits for Honors each year.
Administrative Support: The Honors program has a 10-hour per week share in a Program Management specialist. It has also recently acquired a graduate student assistant. In addition, an undergraduate student assistant is also employed several hours a week to help with correspondence and other communications.
Honors Program Committee: The HPC is a standing committee of the Faculty Senate, made up of four at-large faculty members, a designated faculty senator, two Honors student leaders, and the director of the program as an ex officio non-voting member. The Senate recently proposed a by-laws change that may alter the composition of this committee in the near future, however.
Current Responsibilities of the Director/Associate Director:
Advising: All Honors students have advisors in their major. They also come to the Honors director and associate director for advising help as needed. In addition, Honors runs a separate process to enroll students in their Honors classes before regular course registration begins. This is done through a combination of on-campus group advising meetings, and an online database tool that helps students select their honors course for the upcoming semester. As Honors numbers have approached 300 students, this has taken up an increasing amount of time. In addition, the directors review Honors graduation audits, and advise seniors approaching graduation of unmet Honors program needs.
Extra-curricular Activities: The Bellavance Honors program runs a very full slate of extra-curricular opportunities, both directly through program offerings, and through Honors Student Association events. These include planning and running at least four trips per semester: camping, going to theatre or sporting events, or service projects. In addition there are a similar number of extra-curricular events on campus: a listing of recent activities is online http://www.salisbury.edu/honors/activities/activities.html. These are in addition to activities limited to the students participating in one of the two Honors Living-learning communities. The Honors director and associate director also regularly accompany students to off-campus research conferences (the National Honors Conference, the Northeast Regional Honors Conference, and often the Maryland Honors conference).
Recruiting Students: Honors runs three separate recruiting processes for students each year, as well as recruiting faculty to teach its courses every semester. The directors correspond with 500+ prospective freshmen, review 200+ applications (including essays), and admit a class of between 80 and 100 new students. Honors also recruits transfer students (meeting and working with Honors directors at community colleges, corresponding with prospects identified with admissions etc.), as well as current Salisbury students interested in joining the Honors program after their first semester.
Recruiting Professors: The Honors program director plans, schedules and recruits professors for Honors courses every semester. This involves identifying faculty who are both likely to be good at teaching small, discussion based classes and willing to undertake the extra work involved in preparing them.
Communications: Honors creates and manages a wide variety of communications. These include the mailing of some 500+ invitations sent to prospective students; posters for student events; individual correspondence with prospective students, current students and their parents; weekly e-mails to the student body; a newsletter; admissions brochure copy; catalogue copy; participation in admissions events, particularly scholar’s visitation day; programmatic surveys; Facebook pages for Honors and for an Honors alumni group, and of course, the SU Honors website.
Research Mentoring: While technically part of the teaching of the Honors program, the HONR312 and HONR490 classes are inevitably taught on an overload. Students have research mentors in their chosen discipline, but the Honors director and associate director facilitate the articulation of research expectations, review and monitor student progress, and advise students on research presentation options.
Assessment and Strategic Planning: The Honors program runs programmatic assessment through a variety of mechanisms. Because Honors is not well-represented in tracking data gathered by UARA, the directors have created their own databases in order to track student progress towards Honors program completion and to gather data useful to planning future course offerings and making programmatic improvements. Recently, the director has been invited to Provost’s Council meetings to help make Honors more visible and central to all aspects of university administration.
Current Budget: Despite significant growth in the number of students participating in honors, the Honors program’s budget has remained essentially stagnant since 1994. In addition to the university financial support, the Honors program relies on the Thomas E. Bellavance Honors Scholarship Endowment which provides funds ranging from $4000-$9,600 depending on the endowment’s performance. $4000 of this is spent on student scholarships: the remainder pays for course development costs, and student and faculty conference travel.
Successes of the Current Program:
SU’s honors program has grown significantly in the last four years, almost doubling in the number of active honors students. Honors students are leaders in undergraduate research, accounting for a significant percentage of presentations at the Salisbury University Student Research Conference and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. In addition, SU students regularly make presentations at honors conferences.
Table A: Honors Enrollment
2006-7 AY / 2009-10 AYActive Honors Students (fall) / 145 / 288
Honors Graduates / 14 / 49
Research class enrollment / 28 / 87
HONR312, 490 research classes taught as overload / 100% / 100%
Honors conf. presenters (National, Regional and State) / 12 / 12
SUSRC presenters / 13 / 39
NCUR presenters / 0 / 8
# of Living Learning Communities / 1 / 2
# of Annual assessment surveys / 1 / 5
Though increased retention is not a specific goal of honors programs, it is clear that students who participate in honors have a higher college GPA and are retained at higher rates than other first year students with similar academic credentials who do not participate. At SU, the retention rate for honors students was 5% higher than that of their high achieving (HSGPA >= 3.5 & SAT >= 1100) academic peers in the 2006 and 2007 cohorts.[1] Additionally, Honors students had higher cumulative GPAs than did their high achieving peers (Table B).
Table B: First Year Cumulative GPA