Education Commons^™

Honors Liberal Arts For The 21st Century, John Carrell, Aliza S. Wong, Chad Cain, Carrie J. Preston, Muhammad H. Zaman

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

We argue that honors colleges can deploy the power of the liberal arts to emphasize diversity, equity, global citizenship, ethical leadership, and empowerment by combining liberal arts and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and medicine) fields in interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges, from climate change to the pandemic to forced displacement. As the honors colleges at Texas Tech and Boston University work to be at the forefront of pedagogical and curricular innovation, the twenty-first century has presented us with a student and faculty community becoming increasingly aware of historical, racial, gendered, and socioeconomic disparities, which were further exacerbated by the COVID …

Honors Colleges, Transdisciplinary Education, And Global Challenges, Paul Knox, Paul Heilker

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

The authors contend that the most significant comparative advantage of honors colleges is the combination of gifted and motivated students from every academic discipline and interdisciplinary curricula that train students to integrate diverse perspectives. The authors discuss how to harness this advantage to provide a truly transdisciplinary education through collaborative, project-based learning, both on campus and beyond. They assert that honors colleges are in a unique position to circumvent the siloed structures of academia by convening multidisciplinary groups of students guided by faculty from a wide range of disciplines. Doing so can help reimagine undergraduate education to address urgent and …

Serving Our Communities: Leveraging The Honors College Model At Two-Year Institutions, Eric Hoffman, Victoria M. Bryan, Dan Flores

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Honors colleges at two-year institutions play a uniquely important role in twenty-first century higher education by providing additional opportunities, services, and programming that support greater outcomes for the community, especially for those members of underrepresented and underserved populations. Two-year institutions may wonder how the honors college structure could be valuable, particularly when honors programs are already well established, recognized, and understood among the faculty and staff as providing opportunities for students and supported by administration. Honors colleges can give honors a seat at the table in deans councils, budgetary discussions, campus planning, and curriculum development processes, which in turn allows …

Resisting Disciplinarity: Curriculum Mapping And Transdisciplinarity, Megan Snider Bailey

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

American higher education relies on a taxonomy of knowledge stemming from Puritan ways of thinking and knowing—a disciplinary classification system that sorts “questions asked” and “answers possible” into epistemic categories. This paper interrogates the notion of disciplinarity to better understand the arbitrariness of epistemic divisions and the harm that these decisions cause. The author explores transdisciplinarity as an emerging concept in honors education, one which rejects boundaries and explores problems through multiple, competing perspectives. Transdisciplinary pedagogical approaches offer honors educators a mechanism for pivoting teaching and learning away from outdated assumptions of honors as elitist, giving honors students a liberating …

Diversity In Honors: Understanding Systemic Biases Through Student Narratives, Aman Singla, Minerva Melendrez, Mable T. Thai, Sukhdev S. Mann, Denise Zhong, Kim T. Hoang, Isabella H. Lee, Andrea V. Aponte

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Centered on superiority over a certain group or individual, discrimination becomes predominant in prestigious institutions that pride themselves on exclusivity. Collegiate honors programs tend to deepen this practice by creating highly elite spaces accessible only to a select few. This rigidity can lead to an underrepresentation of historically marginalized groups, students who often lack the necessary resources for achieving academic excellence. This case study examines the ways honors programs inadvertently perpetuate discrimination among different social identities. Using inductive interviewing of honors students (n = 12) to gauge individual perceptions of program diversity, researchers rely on content analysis to generate …

Honors Flourishing In The Midst Of Change, Hao Hong, Robert Glover, Mimi Killinger, Jordan Labouff

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In the wake of formidable institutional change, and in response to administrative concerns about honors’ place within the university, authors describe the development of a pilot course that led to a program’s critical self-study and course transformations that were long overdue. Citizen Scholarship and Human Flourishing incorporates specific practices such as peer instruction and “ungrading” to align with new institutional learning objectives and broadly defined undergraduate research experiences across disciplines. The experimental course presents honors as a model for progressive curricular change in the midst of shifting administrative landscapes.

Meet The New Boss: An Honors Faculty Member Weathers Administrative Change, Annamarie Guzy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author reflects on the role of honors faculty in effectively responding to short- and long-term administrative change, discussing the value of resistance to deleterious administrative decisions and offering advice for successfully navigating cyclical administrative shifts in honors.

Regime Change As Opportunity: A Case For A Radically Inclusive Response, Massimo Rondolino

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The author proposes a radically inclusive approach to reimagining and rebuilding honors education at a time of institutional change, suggesting that when directives do not include a clear vision for academic curricula in practice and orientation (and instead focus on budgetary bottom lines and cost-maximization), honors practitioners benefit from an invaluable opportunity to exert self-determination and agency. This essay describes the effective rebuilding of an honors program by leveraging faculty experience to establish a collaborative community framed within a model of student self-governance and grounded in principles of mindful leadership, anti-cruelty mentality, and maternal thinking.

Ready For Business: Developing An Online Business Honors Course For Quality, Engagement, And Inclusivity, Kayla N. Sapkota

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This essay presents the creation process for an online honors course in the field of business. Highlighting engagement, critical thinking, and inclusivity as central themes, the author describes the course’s inception, structure, outcomes, and post-teaching reflection. The pedagogical framework includes integrative current event assignments and team activities. Noting student responses as generally positive, the author suggests how future versions might expand on remote teamwork opportunities.

Leveraging Regime Change As An Opportunity To Reimagine, Reset, And Demonstrate Results In Honors, Irina V. Ellison

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Regime changes in higher education can be a source of disruption and lead to a potential derailment of honors programs. This paper describes one honors program’s agility and effective negotiation through a rapid succession of upper administrative change, suggesting that when seen as opportunities these changes invite honors practitioners to re-envision, reset, and reevaluate programmatic set points for admissions, student learning, and curricular innovation.

A Relational Model For Honors Education: From Contagion To Permeability, Andrea Radasanu, Rebecca C. Bott, Leigh Fine, Jonathan D. Kotinek, Joy L. Hart, Timothy J. Nichols, Hedi Appel, Daniel M. Roberts, Paul Knox, William L. Ziegler

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

This article considers the value of honors education beyond its marked contributions to enrollment management goals. Suggesting that quantitative assessments toward understanding the value of honors fail to capture its breadth, interdisciplinary focus, and engagement, authors posit a new way of measuring impacts from “contagion model” (spillover to campus and beyond) to “permeability model” (interface across campus). Pointing to the benefits of permeability for both honors and the broader campus communities, authors encourage practitioners to foster exchange in curricular offerings, spatial inputs, scholarly outputs, extramural funding, and institutional support. The meaning and history of organizational permeability is explored, and examples …

Facilitating Change: Examining Honors Students’ Perceptions Of Learning Facilitation Techniques, Conner W. Suddick, Lindi Dice

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Despite advancements in global communication and interpersonal networks, in-person discussions and scholarly discourses often falter in the classroom—stifling innovation and preventing opportunities to foster deeper human connection. This study explores the remedy of facilitation: the art and science of enabling a group to unleash its creativity, address conflict, and unlock collective wisdom. Authors present a variety of facilitation techniques used in teaching honors students (n = 13) and closely examine how students articulate their personal learning outcomes after practicing effective facilitations. Liberating structures, which engage everyone in problem-solving, practicing self-discovery, and envisioning potential solutions, are used. Reflective assessments indicate …

Building An Honors Community That Values And Celebrates Faculty, Kristine A. Miller

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The National Collegiate Honors Council’s “Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education” (2022) outlines the level of commitment, pedagogical innovation and inclusivity, mentoring, and intellectual leadership that honors programs and colleges expect from their faculty. These high expectations require institutional support structures that compensate faculty fairly, foster ongoing professional development, and build a sense of belonging and community in honors. Emphasizing the importance of faculty who teach, mentor, and guide honors students on their educational journeys, the author draws on firsthand experience to offer specific ideas about how to engage and reward honors faculty. The essay suggests that building a …

Developing Honors Faculty Through Faculty Development Programs, Aaron Hanlin

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Despite its crucial role in student success, there is scant research on how honors faculty develop teaching expertise and pedagogical authority. This essay considers the ways in which faculty development programs assist instructors by enhancing the critical skills necessary for positive student outcomes and successful honors programs. While honors scholars continue to advocate for institutional support toward faculty development, this essay provides further rationale and a specific example.

Advising For Today's Honor Students, Erin E. Edgington

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs

Introduction: The Elective System, Honors Degrees, and Academic Advising, Erin E. Edgington

Part I: Theoretical and Philosophical Approaches

Chapter 1: How Honors Advising Is Different, Philip L. Frana

Chapter 2: Advising with Purpose: Utilizing the Motivation for College Success Model, Stephanie Veltman Santarosa

Chapter 3: Motivation in Honors Advising, Matthew T. Best, Kenneth E. Barron, Jared Diener, and Philip L. Frana

Chapter 4: Advising Honors Students: Motivational Interviewing as a Tool for Identity Building and Development, Chelsea McKeirnan

Chapter 5: Intellectual Humility, Honors, and Appreciative Advising: Exploring with Students that Changing Their Mind Does Not End the World, Alan Sells …

Advising To Support Meaning Making And Purpose: Helping Honors Students Focus On Priorities And Evaluate Opportunities Through Intention Setting, Kristy Spear, Ron Cahlon, Katherine Mccall

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Section headings:

What is an intention?

The value of setting an intention

Setting an intention with honors students

Ron’s intention

Katherine’s intention

Final thoughts

The experiences provided are just two examples of how, with the guidance of an advisor, honors students might formulate and incorporate an intention into their lives. This simple yet profound technique is a useful addition to the advisor’s toolbox; it presents the opportunity to help students examine their values, who they are, who they want to be, and how they want to live their lives. This critical reflection can result in a clear focus and systematic …

Teaching And Learning In The Fourth Space: Preparing Scholars To Engage In Solving Community Problems, Heidi Appel, Rebecca C. Bott-Knutson, Joy Hart, Paul Knox, Andrea Radasanu, Leigh E. Fine, Timothy J. Nichols, Daniel Roberts, Keith Garbutt, William Ziegler, Jonathan D. Kotinek, Kathy Cooke, Ralph Keen, Mark Andersen, Jyotsna Kapur

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Honors education has a rich history of preparing students to be good communicators, to think deeply and broadly, to collaborate effectively, and to be ethical citizens engaged in communities. The challenges of contemporary society, however, call for something more. To engage effectively with complex societal issues, students must identify and collaborate effectively with a broad range of stakeholders in the community, understand and employ systems thinking, value highly diverse perspectives, and develop communication skills for conflict management. To develop these additional skills and perspectives, the authors invoke the concept of fourth space as the deep engagement of honors students in …

On The Impossibilities Of Advancing Racial Justice In Higher Education Research Through Reliance On The Campus Climate Heuristic, Elvira Abrica, Deryl K. Hatch-Tocaimaza, Cecilia Rios-Aguilar

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Campus climates are often described as “hostile” for racially minoritized populations. However, growing recognition of complexities associated with intersecting and interwoven systems of social oppression compel the field of higher education to move away from overly simplistic portrayals of postsecondary environments as “welcoming/chilly” or “positive/negative.” More than this, there is a need to engage in a broader discussion of the field’s reliance on the metaphor of meteorological climate itself as a heuristic for characterizing the nature of college learning environments. The central argument presented in this theoretical article is that racial justice is impossible when operationalized through a lens of …

Reflections On Pedagogical Practice And Development Through Multidisciplinary Triadic Peer Mentorship, Nicole Charles, Nathalie Moon, Andrew P. Dicks

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

This article presents a critical reflection on the experiences of three university instructors (two teaching stream and one tenure stream) within a 6-month peer-to-peer mentoring for teaching community of practice (P2P CoP). As part of the P2P CoP, the authors (who were previously unknown to one another) formed a “teaching triad” at a tri-campus, research-intensive Canadian university. They regularly met in person for 1 hour on a weekly basis throughout the Winter 2019 semester to discuss teaching-related matters, undertook classroom visits to observe one another teach, and participated in pedagogical workshops with other P2P CoP members. In this article, the …

Social Role And Role Congruity Influences On Perceived Value Of Women’S Leadership At Southwestern Research Universities, Stephanie J. Jones, Patricia Ryan Pal

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

This qualitative survey study, framed by social role and role congruity theories, explored the perceptions and experiences of 33 women faculty and academic administrators at doctoral-granting highest research-intensive universities located in the Southwestern region of the U.S. The purpose of the study was to expand on our understanding of how social role and role congruity theories can explain and further our understanding of how women are perceived to be valued as leaders in the higher education space, and how society supports this continued valuation. For purposes of this study, social value is explored through the operational processes of higher education …

Toward Institutionalizing Successful Innovations In The Academy, Sarah B. Wise, Courtney Ngai, Joel Christopher Corbo, Mark A. Gammon, Jaclyn K. Rivard, Clara E. Smith

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

Due to the “wicked problem” of the Academy’s resistance to innovation, new teaching and learning programs struggle to become integrated into the fabric of the Academy, which slows the uptake of evidence-based practices. This wicked problem is rooted in the lack of slow, intentional mechanisms for cultural change in the Academy. In this article, we analyze the institutionalization journey of the Departmental Action Team (DAT) project, which is a model for slow, intentional change. Over the last four years, partnering with two campus centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) allowed the DAT project to make institutionalization progress.

This analysis is …

The Life Of Ruth Bader Ginsberg: Biography Of An Educator, Mallory Wallace

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

Now in her eighties, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has lived a remarkable life. Justice Ginsburg has had an enormous impact on the way United States law respects gender equality, transformed the U.S. Constitution, and lead broad social transformation in America (Dodson, 2015). And while all of this is so, before she completed any of this, Justice Ginsburg was known as Professor Ginsburg, spending seventeen years teaching law at two highly respected institutions of higher education. During this time, she created and taught revolutionary courses on Women and the Law, co-write the first-ever published casebook on sex-based discrimination, …

A Sense Of Belonging, Suketu P. Bhavsar

Honors in Practice Online Archive

National Collegiate Honors Council President delivers his address at the NCHC’s 2021 conference, describing that, despite the privileges he has chosen and enjoyed, expressions of otherness have led to feelings of estrangement. Considering the question of how to face this challenge in honors, the author emphasizes the imperative of creating a sense of belonging for every student.

Giving A Lot Of Ourselves: How Mother Leaders In Higher Education Experienced Parenting And Leading During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Laura E Boche

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This qualitative interpretative phenomenological analysis explored the lived experience of mother executive administrators in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing the philosophical underpinnings of the Heideggerian phenomenological approach, the following research question guided this study: What are the lived experiences of mother executive administrators in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic? Participants included nine self-identified mother executive administrators from one Midwest state at a variety of institution types and locations within the state. Data collection involved two focus groups and individual interviews with all nine participants. After data analysis, three recurrent themes emerged from the data: (1) Burnout and …

How Campus Space Becomes White Place: Advancing A Spatial Analysis Of Whiteness In Higher Education, Antonio Duran, Zak Foste, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Jeremy T. Snipes

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Space and place are central to understanding the production and maintenance of racial inequality in the United States. Though examinations of the racialized dynamics of space are present in other disciplines, higher education scholars have infrequently interrogated how space becomes racialized on college campuses. This conceptual paper functions as a much-needed intervention, articulating how the racialization of space at historically white colleges and universities occurs and the subsequent consequences for Students of Color. In particular, we describe how physical campus spaces historically become racialized as white, how such spaces are maintained and fortified, and the consequences of racialized space on …

Competence And Challenge: Sorority And Fraternity Life Professionals’ Preparation To Advise Culturally Based Sfl Organizations, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Hannah L. Reyes, Antonio Duran

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This qualitative narrative inquiry examined the professional preparation of sorority and fraternity (SFL) professionals working with culturally-based sororities and fraternities. Using narratives drawn from 15 professionals and guided by our conceptual framework, we unpacked important findings in terms of ways participants referenced their limited educational experiences, how they navigated learning within the confines of their professional roles, and distinctions in the value that professional associations and networks offered them. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

A Path Forward: Critically Examining Practitioners' Role In Addressing Campus Racial Climate, Kaleb L. Briscoe, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, Ashley L. Swift

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Student affairs professionals (SAPs) have long grappled with the pervasiveness of whiteness within predominantly white institutions (PWIs). In this paper, we bring together our perspectives to offer insight into how whiteness informs SAPs’ response to racialized incidents and advocacy for Students of Color.

Spaces And Societal Interactions: Foundations Of The Critical Disabled Cultural Lens Of A Child Of Disabled Adults, Amelia-Marie Altstadt

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

CoDisA are present on our campuses, but not present within research. This autoethnographic study focuses on providing the foundation of the critical disabled cultural lens of a Child of Disabled Adults (CoDisA) for future study of CoDisA within higher education research. The findings of spaces and societal interactions are presented through the accessible format of autoethnodrama. This two act show is a fun and immersive way to take you on a college tour trip “up the 5," from San Diego, California to Rohnert Park, California in Sonoma County. Act 1, the findings chapter with thorough scene descriptions, helps frame where …

From Negotiator To Note-Taker: The Role Of Women Leaders And Academic Technology Cultures, Leslie Zenk, Susan Harden

Journal of Women in Educational Leadership

For years, there has been a perceived inaccessibility of the field of Information Technology, centering on an organizational culture of “men and their machines” (Clark, 2012). This paper examines the role of women who lead technology initiatives in higher education and presents the experiences of these women leaders and their collision of organizational cultures as part of a comparative case study of two public institutions. Findings suggest elements of culture within the IT field that contribute to the experiences of women leaders in IT, and illuminate that leading a technology project may add a layer of gender expectations and gender …

Aligning Student Affairs Practice With Espoused Commitments To Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion, Crystal Eufemia Garcia, William Walker, Dawn Morgan, Yuwei Shi

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Using a critical qualitative approach, we explored ways student affairs professionals at predominantly white institutions within the South made sense of and enacted commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion. Findings show that participants rarely engaged in direct conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion with their colleagues and often conflated these terms. Those who engaged in equity work were often driven by their own salient identities, yet they also shared ways their efforts were constrained by institutional policies. The study offers implications for practice for student affairs professionals, professional preparation programs, and higher education institutions.