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Some Useful & Fun Links
Honors in Maine
Honors Organizations
More Honors Links
Honor Societies
Good Stuff Free
Virtual Places to Visit
University of Maine System Honors Programs
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University of Maine at Augusta (Director, Jon Schlenker)
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University of Maine at Farmington (Director, Michael Burke)
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University of Maine at Machias (Director, Cindy Huggins)
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University of Maine at Presque Isle (Director, Ray Rice)
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University of Southern Maine (Director, George Caffentzis)
The Honors College at The University of Maine is a member of each of the following organizations which promote and support Honors education on a national, regional, and state level.
National Collegiate
Honors Council (NCHC)
Each fall the NCHC holds an annual, five-day meeting, bringing almost 2000
administrators, faculty, and students together to discuss and support Honors
education. The 2006 meeting was in Philadelphia; in 2007 the meeting will
be in Denver and in 2008 in San Antonio.
NCHC Student Website
While this site is a bit out-of-date (so what else is new with the web?), it has
some good information and links. In addition, there is information on
joining an NCHC student listserv.
Northeast Region of the NCHC
Each spring the NE Region of the NCHC holds its three-day meeting at an
appropriate site in the northeast. The 2007 meeting will be held in
Providence, Rhode Island in early April.
Undergraduate Journals
& Conferences Directory
An amazing number of journals from across the country are available to publish
undergraduate papers. Some publish solely undergraduate work, while others publish undergraduate, graduate, and
faculty work. The UJCD, housed at Mercyhurst College (Erie,
Pennsylvania), is a wonderful resource for both journals and conferences that
cater to undergraduate researchers "without regard to the undergraduate
student's institutional affiliation." They do a good job screening and
updating the site. Check it out! Get published! Get noticed!
The NCHC Honors Listserv
Instructions on joining, using, and leaving the listserv can be found here.
This listserv, hosted at George Washington University, is an excellent method to communicate with members of the Honors
education community across the world (mostly in the United States, but things
are changing...)
On this page there are also directions for joining listservs devoted to two-year
college programs and large university programs. We expect, with some
changes in the NCHC organizational structure, additional such opportunities may
arise in the near future.
Association of College Honor
Societies
This is an organization that tries to make some sense of the myriad honor
societies that invite students to join. The Association describes its goals as
follows:
The Association shall act as the coordinating agency for collegiate honor societies; provide facilities for the consideration of matters of mutual interest; define honor societies of the several types; cooperate with college and university faculties and administrative officers in developing and maintaining high standards and useful functions; and collect, publish, and distribute information and data.
It's a good place to start when you receive an invitation. However, it should be noted that while the ACHS includes many well-respected honor societies, it doesn't include them all; a case in point is Phi Beta Kappa (see below).
Phi Beta Kappa
Founded at the College of William and Mary in 1776, PBK is without question the
most recognized undergraduate honor society in the country, probably he world.
PBK describes itself as "the oldest and most respected undergraduate honors
organization in the United States." That's probably very close to the
truth. However, not everyone, including some of our very best students, is
eligible to join PBK because its mission is confined to "fostering and recognizing
excellence in the liberal arts and sciences." How the liberal arts
and sciences are defined often
varies from university to university and occasionally is time-dependent.
It's interesting to note that there are only four chapters of PBK in the state of Maine: here at UMaine,
Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby. Our UMaine PBK website can be found at
www.umaine.edu/pbk.
Phi Kappa Phi
Founded here at the University of Maine in 1900, PKP describes itself as "the
nation's oldest, largest, and most selective all-discipline honor society."
The last phrase is the one that distinguishes it from Phi Beta Kappa and
provides the opportunity for membership which includes all of our most academically accomplished
students. PKP's mission is "to recognize and promote academic excellence
in all fields of higher education and to engage the community of scholars in
service to others."
Sigma Xi
Founded in 1886 as an honor society for science and engineering, Sigma Xi
describes itself today as "an international research society whose programs and
activities promote the health of the scientific enterprise and honor scientific
achievement." Students "who have shown potential as researchers" are
elected as associate members.
Norm
Weiner's Article for First-Year Students
As I say on our homepage, Norm (a recent President of the NCHC and Honors
director at SUNY-Oswego) gets it nearly all right. All students, not only
first-year students and not only Honors students, and faculty members should
read this. We have it on our website
here, but this link is to the
original.
Poster Help!
Here's some good stuff to help you design and produce quality posters for
academic meetings. These come by way of Professor Carol Brewer in the
Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana. Thanks
Carol! Here's a link to their poster presentation page on their
Undergraduate Research Conference site:
http://www.umcur.org/Poster.htm
GPA Calculators
This link is to a "plain vanilla" version of our GPA Calculators page
(the UMaine Honors College version can be found at GPA
Calculators). Feel free to use the calculators, steal them for
your website, or modify them in any way you wish. In fact, if you have
some good ideas for modifications, please let me know
— I'll no doubt want to update our page with
your changes!
Virtual Places to Visit (or, places Charlie likes...)
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the nation's oldest federal
cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the
largest library in the world, with nearly 128 million items on approximately 530
miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and
other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8
million maps, and 57 million manuscripts.
Smithsonian Institution
In 1826, James Smithson, a British scientist, drew up his last will and
testament, naming his nephew as beneficiary. Smithson stipulated that, should
the nephew die without heirs (as he would in 1835), the estate should go “to the
United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the
Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of
knowledge among men.”
The motives
behind Smithson’s bequest remain mysterious. He never traveled to the United
States and seems to have had no correspondence with anyone here. Some have
suggested that his bequest was motivated in part by revenge against the
rigidities of British society, which had denied Smithson, who was illegitimate,
the right to use his father’s name. Others have suggested it reflected his
interest in the Enlightenment ideals of democracy and universal education.
National Public Radio
NPR is a nationally acclaimed provider of news, information and entertainment
programming, and is the media industry leader in sound gathering and production.
The world's first noncommercial, satellite-delivered radio network, NPR is an
independent, private, nonprofit membership organization funded primarily through
its own service-generating activities. NPR was incorporated in 1970
pursuant to the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, but it is not a government
agency. NPR is not a radio station itself nor does it own any radio stations,
but NPR programs can be heard on more than 770 public radio stations across the
United States. NPR's mission is to work in partnership with its member stations
to create a more informed public-one challenged and invigorated by a deeper
understanding and appreciation of events, ideas and cultures.