Honors Committee Meeting Minutes

October 17, 2017, 3-3:45pm, FA Green Room

In attendance: Jessica Caldwell, Monica Friedrich, Tony Huntley, Maureen Smith, Gary Luke, Miki Mikolajczak, Orlantha Nin, and Devin Weathersby, Honors Student Council member

  1. Committee Evaluation: The results from the evaluation completed online in Spring 2017 was discussed. Members gave comments on the results. Comments were summarized for submission to Jennifer Klein.
  1. Student Research Conferences:

IVC/SC: November 4th at IVC

SCCUR: Nov 18th at Cal Poly Pomona

HTCC: April 7th, 2018 at UC Irvine – will make abstract form and deadline December 8th, 2017. Also, we need to select at least two students for the Exemplary Achievement Scholarship award.

  1. Scheduling and Budget:

-The status of the instructional budget for honors classes has undergone changes since K. Werle became the VPI. She unilaterally stopped reserving a centralized budget for Honors classes and distributed those resources among the divisions that last housed them. Now that she is retiring, we would like to obtain clarity on the budget allocation for honors classes moving forward and have our centralized budget restored so that we can respond to our students’ class needs and ensure we have class seats for our population.

-The state CCC office is having "computer issues" that are preventing them from posting updated articulation (via assist.org) and approved courses. We are awaiting resolution to the problem at the state level.

  1. Flex week Spring 2018: Alannah will give a report on the honors student population, and it may be beneficial to invite faculty from across the campus to attend during flex week. Regarding IRB and IACUC status, we are awaiting designation of an institutional officer for the IACUC. The IRB has been established. Both of these will be discussed at another flex week event, co-presented by Alannah and Tony.
  1. Outreach/Marketing: Alannah is coordinating three events to reach out to potential honors students, including Saddleback Valley Unified School District (off campus), Family Night (Tues Nov 14th), and Marketing for Classes "One Sentence." Faculty teaching Honors can describe how their Honors course differs from the regular section. An email request has been sent to all faculty teaching Honors courses, and Alannah is compiling the responses.
  1. Humanities courses to be taught in the summer. This would meet student demand. We are seeking faculty who would be interested in teaching these courses.
  1. Next Meeting is November 14th in FA Green Room.