A one

A one-year retrospective of
The Honors College at The University of Maine
15 August 2003

A Review of

Toward a Century of Honors at Maine: A Blueprint

The University of Maine Honors College

Report of the Provost’s Commission on an Honors College

7 May 2001

[Note: Text from original report is italicized. New initiatives related to the recommendations, but not directly addressing them, are denoted by boldface.]

Introduction

The Provost’s Commission on an Honors College strongly and unanimously recommends the creation of an Honors College at the University of Maine at the earliest possible time and no later than Fall 2002.

Status: Accomplished. We completed our administrative transition on 1 August 2002, and held the Inauguration (and rededication of the Honors Center) on 26 October 2002.

I. Mission Statement

The Commission recommends the adoption of the following mission statement for the Honors College. It is a modification of the current Honors Program mission.

Status: Accomplished. The mission statement was accepted by Honors Council, November 2001. (See Appendix A)

II. Academic/Governance Structure

The Commission recommends an administrative structure wherein students in the Honors College will be enrolled in one (or more) of the five “traditional” colleges of the University of Maine.

Status: Accomplished. This has been administratively instituted (by the Office of Student Records) on the ISIS system, beginning August 2002.

We further recommend that the Honors College be headed by a Director who will report jointly to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs and the Executive Vice President and Provost and will sit on the Provost’s Council... The Director will be assisted by a professional staff sufficient to carry out the Honors College’s Mission.

Status: Accomplished, pending continued funding. Beginning AY02-03, the Director of the Honors College sits on the Provost’s Council. Reclassifying a staff member to fill the Coordinator of Student Academic Services and Budget position has addressed some of the administrative load. The two Honors Associate positions, currently funded from external sources, have proved invaluable in the organization and implementation of The Honors College.

As is currently the case with the Honors Program, the Director will be advised by the Honors Council which includes representation from the Honors Faculty, each College, Fogler Library, and the Honors student body. The structure of the Honors Council below includes some slight modifications of the current structure, in particular term lengths for College Honors Secretaries and requiring representation from the Honors Faculty (see section IV) have been addressed.

Status: Pending. The Honors Council membership has been re-written, but it has not yet been approved at higher administrative levels. We hope to have this accomplished during the Fall 2003 semester. (See Appendix B)

Following the common practice in academic departments and colleges, we recommend that the Honors College undergo a regular external review on a five-year schedule, possibly using the services of the Evaluation Committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council.

Status: Scheduled. The next external review is scheduled to take place in the 2006-07 academic year. This timing will allow the College to develop its infrastructure and will also coincide with one complete cohort of students going through the College and the new curriculum.

In addition, the Commission recommends the establishment of an Honors College Advisory and Development Committee, composed of Honors alumni and benefactors, to promote and support the Honors College.

Status: Accomplished. The Honors College Development Committee has been organized and primarily charged with development work aimed to complete the renovation of Colvin Hall which began in 1998. With the completion of that project, the committee will turn its work toward continuing programmatic development for The Honors College.

III. Curriculum

In particular, we recommend an Honors Core Curriculum composed of courses offered by the Honors College:

The four-semester Civilizations: Past, Present, and Future sequence integrates the fundamental ideas of the humanities, social sciences, and sciences in the context of both European and non-European cultures. This sequence is an integration and extension of the two current Honors sequences: The Development of Western Thought and The Sciences and Western Culture.

Status: Accomplished. Approximately 25 faculty members from across The University have crafted a four-semester sequence which addresses the issues in this recommendation. The first two semesters of the sequence were taught first in AY02-03 and the third and fourth semesters will be introduced in AY03-04. The success of the new sequence is supported by a retention rate into the second year of nearly 75%.

A new three-semester sequence, Science: A Human Endeavor, an interdisciplinary integrative approach to laboratory and exploratory science and mathematics.

Status: On hold. Work began on this initiative, but due to concerns surrounding funding and staffing, it has been put on hold. The current plan is to begin work on this sequence again in AY03-04.

We further recommend that students who complete the entire Honors College curriculum will be exempt from the University’s general education requirements.

Status: Accomplished, in major part. In June 2002, the UPCC agreed to allow the Honors core curriculum (Civilizations plus an Honors tutorial) satisfy the entirety of the Human Values and Social Contexts requirements, as well as the Ethics and College Composition (ENG101) requirements. Moreover, the third and fourth Civilizations courses are listed as writing-intensive.

In addition, the Commission recommends extending the current Honors model to require students in the Honors College to complete nine credits of Honors work in the major. This coursework may take various forms, mutually agreed upon by the academic department or College and the Honors College (and approved by the Honors Council).

Status: Modified/Accomplished. Discussions with the Faculty Senate, Honors Council, and Student Advisory Board led to the modification of this recommended requirement and its re-conceptualization as “Honors Experiences,” a classification that includes as a subset the “honors work in the major.” The current requirement is for students to complete 2 Honors Experiences. (See Appendix C)

The Thesis, whenever possible, will be completed in the student’s major discipline and serve as the major-mandated capstone experience.

Status: Ongoing initiative. Currently nineteen departments, representing nearly forty majors including many elected by the majority of our students, accept the Honors Thesis as an alternative capstone experience. A major goal of the upcoming AY03-04 is to expand the number of articulation agreements, with a particular emphasis on looking at the Colleges of Engineering and Business, Public Policy, and Health.

IV. Honors Faculty

The Commission recommends the institution of an Honors Faculty, modeled on the Graduate Faculty. The Honors Faculty, like the Graduate Faculty, will be drawn from faculty members who hold appointments in the five academic colleges. By a variety of mechanisms, these faculty members will teach some of their course load in the Honors College.

Status: In process. The Honors Council has accepted this policy in concept. However, the specific description has been modified several times and needs to be reviewed both by the faculty and the Honors Council. This is a primary goal for AY03-04 with a timeline including a faculty review in Fall 2003 and a discussion with both AFUM and the University administration prior to implementation in Spring 2004.

The Commission recommends that the Director continues to reach out to bring new faculty voices into the College via the opportunities provided by curriculum revision and expansion and the annual call for tutorial proposals and preceptorial leaders.

Status: Accomplished and ongoing. More than ten new faculty preceptors began teaching in AY02-03 or will begin in AY03-04, coming from areas such as biological sciences, studio art, economics, Asian studies, history, English, music performance, women’s studies, and sociology. Each of the ten tutorials being offered for AY03-04 is taught by a faculty member who has never taught in Honors (eight of them) or has never taught a tutorial (the remaining two).

In order to provide for continuing broad-based assessment of the work done by the members of the Honors Faculty, the Commission recommends the establishment of an Honors College Faculty Committee composed of those Honors Faculty members who have had four or more years of continual service to Honors. In addition, we recommend that the Director of the Honors College and the Honors College Faculty Committee annually review each member of the Honors Faculty and share review findings with the chair of the faculty member’s department as well as with her/his peer committee.

Status: Pending. The mechanism for this is in place, and once the Honors Faculty is finalized, we will be able to move quickly to accomplish this task.

The Commission also recommends establishing a program of Honors College Sabbaticals. These would be an option the University of Maine makes available within its overall policy on sabbaticals, i.e. a faculty member eligible for sabbatical leave could choose this opportunity in lieu of a traditional sabbatical.

Status: Under review. There seem to be numerous questions surrounding the implementation and consequences of this proposal.

V. Funding

The Commission recognizes that there will be budget implications of its recommendations. However, we strongly recommend that a funding plan be devised to provide both for the transition from an Honors Program to an Honors College and for continued support for the Honors College.

Status: Ongoing discussions and structuring. Currently, the funding for the Honors College transition has come from supplements to the budget from Academic Affairs to address additional instructional needs complemented by external funding for both instructional and transitional costs. The plan in place calls for phasing out the external funding over a three-year timeframe. This will meet the College’s instructional budget, but it will not address additional staffing costs.

Based on its analyses, the Commission recommends that the Honors College be funded through a formula based partly on student credit hours taught in the core and thesis work. The salary lines for the full-time staff would be base budgeted along with a small operating budget. The remaining instructional and operating budget would be equivalent to the tuition revenue generated by HON courses. An estimate based on projections and previous year figures would be credited to the accounts at the beginning of the fiscal year with adjustments being made at the end of each semester.

Status: Still under consideration. This model would be quite different from current funding schema for other units of the University. At present no proposal to move in this direction has been presented.

VI. Students

We thus recommend that expanded Honors advising be instituted to enable students to integrate the Honors curriculum with their department and college requirements. To this end, College Honors Secretaries will serve as additional points of contact for students majoring in their colleges.

Status: In progress, mostly completed. The Honors College Associates, working with the Director, chairs, associate deans, and the College Honors Secretaries, have developed sample curricula for each major offered by The University. These curricula integrate the course of study in the major with the Honors College curriculum. Drafts for each major have been completed, and 85 of the total 125 curricula have received approval from the major department. The completion of this initiative is perhaps the number one priority for AY03-04. (Approved curricula can be found at www.honors.umaine.edu/curricula.htm.)

The Commission further recommends the adoption of an Honor Code for the Honors College.

Status: On hold; slow progress. A commission, appointed by the Director, of ten Honors students developed an Honor Code and presented it for adoption at the end of the 2001-02 year. However, concerns raised by the University of Maine System Counsel and the Office of Student Judicial Affairs have prevented the implementation of the Code. We were not able to have the Code approved for the beginning of AY0304. The Director will make this a priority for the next academic year.

The Commission recommends continuation, with slight modifications, of the current processes for monitoring and managing the progress of students toward a degree with Honors.

Status: Accomplished. The Honors Council, March/April 2002, adopted a policy in which students, entering The University after June 2002 would be required to attain a GPA of 3.3 or better to graduate with Honors. Students falling below 2.5 (checked annually) would be separated from The College and students falling below 3.0 (checked annually) would be cautioned. To enroll in HON498, a student must have a 3.1 GPA.

In particular, the Honors College should try to offer, to the extent permitted by available monies, all of its students full textbook scholarships and a cultural affairs stipend to be used at performances and museums in the greater Bangor area.

Status: Partially accomplished. Textbook scholarships still seem to be wishful thinking. However, funding both from the Honors College Cultural Enrichment Fund (funded through AY03-04) and the soon to be available Jacqueline Beau and Dennis Rezendes Honors Arts Curriculum Fund (to be available in AY04-05) have enabled and will continue to enable us to provide substantial cultural opportunities for students in The Honors College. Ongoing advancement efforts will support continuation in this area.

Students in the Honors College will continue to have the opportunity to live in two Honors housing alternatives. Colvin Hall, site of the Robert B. Thomson Honors Center, has two floors of Honors-only residence housing thirty-six students. Stodder Hall has a policy of Honors-first housing with a potential occupancy of approximately 150 students.

Status: Accomplished and expanded. Stodder Hall housing for Honors students was a success in many ways. However, the building is some distance from the Honors Center (in Colvin Hall) and Stodder had not been completely dedicated to Honors housing. In the Fall of 2003, Balentine Hall will re-open as a co-educational Honors residence. The proximity of Balentine to Colvin as well as the demographics of its residents should provide some exceptional opportunities for our students. Thanks to a good collaboration with Residential Life, all of the resident assistants in Colvin and Balentine Halls will be members of The Honors College. The combined Colvin/Balentine facility will house approximately 120 of the nearly 600 Honors students.

VII. Initiatives

The Commission recommends the expansion of many of the ongoing initiatives of the Honors Program as well as the consideration and adoptions of several new Honors College initiatives.

Status: See below for specifics.

A. Promoting undergraduate research in Honors and throughout the University

The Commission fully supports the partnership between Honors and the Graduate School that is currently working to coordinate projects from various colleges, departments, and units into a University of Maine Student Research Week. This will raise the visibility of each of the components and provide a context and audience of broader scope for all.

Status: Accomplished. The first two Student Research and Creative Achievement Weeks have been very well received. The Director of the Graduate School and the Director of The Honors College co-chair the committee that coordinates the event. In addition, in each of the first two years, and we hope hereafter, the keynote speaker for the Student Research and Creative Achievement Week has been the TIAA-CREF Distinguished Honors Graduate Lecturer funded through a collaboration between The Honors College and TIAA-CREF.

The Commission recommends the further development and implementation of external connections to provide additional opportunities for undergraduate research. These might take the form of initiatives such as the Honors Program’s substantial part of the University’s commitment to a BRIN (Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network) NIH grant proposal headed up by the Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory: Biomedical Research Training in Maine in Comparative Genomics. The BRIN would enable students to complete their thesis research at MDIBL, the Jackson Laboratory, or other member institutions and also calls for an Honors 310 tutorial to be taught in conjunction with MDIBL each year. Alternatively, there might be direct connections with such facilities: MDIBL and the Honors Program have agreed to implement many of these joint initiatives regardless of the outcome of the proposal.

Status: Accomplished. The BRIN proposal was successful. For two weeks in March 2003, MDIBL hosted 14 University of Maine students (along with 2 from Bowdoin College) in an Honors 350 Seminar on Functional Genomics. The instruction was provided by MDIBL faculty as well as University faculty. We hope to offer this or a similar experience in the 2003-04 academic year. Future opportunities may depend on funding continuation or other mechanisms. We also hope to develop collaborations to provide thesis research experiences at MDIBL along with the Jackson Laboratory.

We encourage the establishment of a partnership involving the Honors Program, the Franco-American Studies Program, the Native American Studies Program, and academic colleges to submit a proposal for a McNair Scholars program at the University of Maine. This Department of Education program is directed to first-generation college students and students from groups under-represented in graduate education and aims to provide support and opportunity to juniors and seniors, hoping to increase the number of these students in graduate programs.

Status: Postponed. Due to time and other constraints, the deadline for the McNair proposal passed without a University of Maine submission. We hope to submit a proposal for the next funding cycle.

The Director and an Honors Associate have worked with the Director of Admissions and the Director of the Wabanaki Center to develop a recruiting strategy for Native American students who might be interested in The University of Maine and The Honors College. This strategy would take advantage of the scholarship opportunities available to Native American students at UMaine.

The Commission recommends the investigation of other models of undergraduate research of all modalities, both discipline-based and interdisciplinary and spanning the spectrum of students at the University. The Honors College might also coordinate such opportunities involving students not in the College.

Status: Ongoing. Relationships have been developed with both the Margaret Chase Smith Center for Public Policy and the Senator George Mitchell Center for Environmental & Watershed Research. Through a joint effort we hope to involve more of our students with these Centers. We also hope to consider other opportunities for supporting and facilitating undergraduate research at The University of Maine. The Director hopes to take part in a Learning Circle sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence devoted to undergraduate research on campus.

B. Continued development of articulation agreements with the departments and colleges for accepting the Honors thesis as an alternative capstone

Currently, twenty-nine majors accept the Honors thesis as a capstone experience in lieu of the departmental capstone requirement. The Commission recommends continuing the discussion with other departments and colleges to provide similar understandings.

Status: Progressing and ongoing. Recent additions to the articulation agreements include aquaculture, ecology and environmental sciences, forest ecosystems science, the interdisciplinary B.A. in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, marine science, and physics and astronomy.

Discussions with departments in the College of Engineering may lead to possibilities of curriculum adjustments for those students completing an Honors thesis even if it may not replace the capstone project.

In addition, a member of the faculty of the College of Education and Human Development has developed a curriculum model that would enable students in that college to integrate their Honors thesis work with their capstone (student teaching) through the process of action research. This will enable future teachers to complete their theses during their senior years, rather than having to begin them a semester early.

C. Expanding opportunities for travel to professional meetings for Honors students

The Commission recognizes that scholarly meetings, such as the annual meeting of the National Collegiate Honors Council, provide an opportunity for students to present papers, exhibit posters, and learn from their peers from across the country. We fully support as a high priority increasing these opportunities and funding students to attend and present at the National Collegiate Honors Council annual and regional meetings, National Collegiate Undergraduate Research conference, and disciplinary conferences in their majors. We recommend investigating partnerships where funding for this travel could be jointly arranged among the Honors College, the student’s department, and the student’s college.

Status: Accomplished, pending continued funding. Through the 2003-04 academic year, funds provided through the Honors College Student Research and Travel Fund have supported student travel to the annual NCHC conference as well as other academic travel. However, funding post-AY03-04 will have to be secured. Currently, The Honors College funds, when possible, Honors-related travel and contributes significantly to non-Honors travel by students in The Honors College.

The Commission recommends that the Honors College continue to explore new pedagogical opportunities for its students. This would include elective courses intended to broaden the scope of the Honors experience such as Honors 251: A Cultural Odyssey which integrates attendance at area cultural events: plays, art shows, musical performances, with discussions of the societal connections and impacts of those events and Honors 252: The World in Perspective which provides an opportunity for students to explore timely questions of the world stage with a diverse group of faculty members.

Status: Ongoing. A recent endowment, the Jacqueline Beau and Dennis Rezendes Honors Arts Curriculum Fund, has been established to address precisely the issue of Honors 251. That fund will not begin to pay out until the AY05-06; however, the donors have agreed to provide funds equal to the expected annual income for the AY04-05. Planning for this new initiative will be a primary project for the coming year.

The second initiative is an ongoing undertaking that needs to be addressed. The Director and staff will consult with Honors faculty to design model that will be both effective and affordable in terms of both finances and time – student and faculty.

Through several outreach efforts, the Honors College should continually attempt to enrich and strengthen connections with its graduates. The ongoing Honors Thesis Archives Project, for example, is designed to bring to one place, in both electronic and physical format, all of the over eight hundred Honors theses written at the University of Maine. Likewise, an expanded web presence and the reinvigorated newsletter, Minerva, now provide ways to keep in touch with graduates and provide visibility for Honors at Maine. Another new initiative would invite two outstanding University of Maine Honors graduates each year to deliver public lectures for the University community.

Status: Ongoing. A very successful Honors graduate event was held in March 2003 at the Library of Congress. The event was attended by forty-one current Honors students, approximately 25 graduates and friends, and several University guests. Future events, in collaboration with the University Alumni Association and the Development Office, are planned in the coming semesters in Boston and New York.

An Honors graduates’ organization is in the process of being constituted. Contacting all of the graduates of the Honors Program was very successful, with many of them expressing interest in joining such and organization as well as being involved as mentors for current Honors students. The staff is in the process of putting together the first “annual magazine” for The Honors College. This will include news of the College as well as profiles of all of the graduating Honors students including descriptions of their thesis research.

A mentor network is being designed and implemented by the Coordinator of Student Academic Services. Working with the model developed by the Career Center, we hope to have this up and going in the coming year.