“the Honors Institute already provides a strong variety of classes” “one on one counseling” “more awareness for the general student body” “none” “more in-house functions and events to make it a tight-knit group” “conferences or a yearly social gathering where we can get to meet everyone in the program” When asked how best to improve the administration of the Institute, students made the following suggestions” “have a live person, such as a coordinator in the honors office” “have more teachers involved with the honors program” “I think it’s fine” “Good job already” “the administrator is willing to help you with the program; is very dynamic and flexible” “nothing” When asked about how to improve the faculty’s role in sponsoring contracts, students made the following comments: “none” “I think it’s fine” “make it more open and available to all students” “I would like to see part time faculty be willing to provide honors contracts”
African American: 4 (3.2%) American Indian: 1 (0.8%) Asian: 65 (52%) Asian Indian: 8 (6.4%) Arab/Middle Eastern: 2 (1.6%) Hispanic/Latino: 33 (26%) White/Caucasian: 11 (8.8%) Overall, there are far more women than men involved in Honors. Program Weaknesses Limited counseling. The Institute is in a transitional phase with its relationship with counseling. In the past year, the two counselors that had traditionally worked with Honors (one of whom was instrumental in forming the Honors Institute in the first place) retired. This has left the Institute with no established relationship with the counselors. As a result, the current Coordinator has begun to develop new partnerships with counselors to support the counseling needs of its students. This effort to develop a new relationship is still in its early stages, but should result in a newly developed and robust partnership with Counseling. Limited access to Coordinator. With the reduction of offset time to 30% the number of hours that the Coordinator is available for office hours is limited, and some of those hours are dedicated to administrative tasks, which reduces the number of hours available to meet with Honors students to discuss their needs. Fortunately, most Honors students need little guidance and can develop and complete their projects with a great deal of autonomy. However, the limited availability of the Coordinator means that there is less ability to develop relationships between the Coordinator and the Honors students. Greater resources, particularly providing a part-time administrative assistant, or more offset time, would allow the Honors office to remain open more hours to address student needs or field questions by students who stop by the office. An assistant would also help to take care of the necessary administrative functions, freeing up the Coordinator to recruit and promote. Limited ability to develop an academic community (no honors sections). In addition to the limited ability to create an Honors community centered in the Honors office, there also is great difficulty in establishing an academic Honors community. With limited ability to recruit, process and retain Honors students, there is not a critical mass of Honors students to justify specific Honors sections of courses. In the past there were such sections, but they have become the victim of budget cuts. One possible solution that would