Higher Education Administration Commons^™

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 …

A Lifelong Network: Perceptions And Experiences Of First-Generation Alums After Graduation, Allison Toney

Theses and Dissertations

As first-generation students transition to college graduates, the question lies in whether institutions of higher education are continuing to provide opportunities for them as alums. As a result of first-generation college students being the first in their family to attend college, students may enter college not knowing what to expect. But institutions have evolved to provide services, resources and opportunities that support their success while enrolled. Upon graduation, the process of transitioning out of college can be a challenging time for students as they seek post-graduation success. Some institutions offer support and resources tailored specifically to first-generation graduates or graduates …

Moving Forward Together: Reflections Of A National Survey Of Ot/Ota Students’ Perceptions Of Culturally Aware Educational Content Delivery, Adair M. Sanchez, Iris W. Burns, Tina M. Deangelis, Maclain Capron, Abigail Mills, Taylor Kligerman

Journal of Occupational Therapy Education

In June of 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd and the additional atrocities against historically marginalized people and communities across the United States, the Commission on Education (COE) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) sought to act within its scope. A retrospective survey (N= 1,692) was developed, deployed, and analyzed in accordance with the COE’s standard operating procedures relating specifically to monitoring trends that impact the education of occupational therapy (OT) and occupational therapy assistant (OTA) students. This survey aimed to capture perspectives from OT/OTA students regarding the delivery of culturally aware educational content in curricula …

Retaining Employees In A Higher Academic Institution During A Volatile Job Market, Benjamin Novak

Doctor of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the root cause of the increased rate of employee turnover at a higher educational institution and how to retain their current employees. The importance of this study was to help the educational institution reduce their employee turnover so they do not continue to struggle to find new talent to replace their former employees. The methodology that was utilized in this study was mixed methodology with a convergent design where both the quantitative and qualitative data were collected simultaneously. The quantitative data was collected through an anonymous survey that utilized a 4-point Likert …

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 First-Generation And Socioeconomically Diverse Honors Students, Angela D. Mead

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Honors programs and colleges increasingly consider socioeconomic status as a form of diversity by actively recruiting first-generation and low-income college students. Supporting this movement, the National Collegiate Honors Council’s “Shared Principals and Practices of Honors Education” (2022) highlights the need for inclusive excellence from across all communities. First-generation and low-income students are often high-potential students, and their inclusion into honors communities enhances the whole. The challenge, though, is retaining and graduating these students at rates similar to their more advantaged peers. Academic advising can be an effective tool in these efforts.

First-generation and socioeconomically diverse college students are a large …

Telling Your Story: Stewardship And The Honors College, Andrew Martino

National Collegiate Honors Council Monographs: Chapters

Honors administrators, particularly honors college deans, find themselves in positions not necessarily equivalent to academic deans in other disciplines. Often, honors college deans function more like provosts in that they need to attend to multiple disciplines simultaneously, while also often carrying obligations in teaching and advising. In addition, the initiation, cultivation, and stewardship of donors to the college are essential components to the honors college dean’s portfolio. This task may be particularly challenging for a dean in honors in that many potential donors are intellectually and emotionally tied to their specific major and/or school or college. And yet, fundraising, especially …

Transgender And Gender Non-Conforming College Students’ Challenges, Supports, And Successes: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Jennifer R. Curry, Imre Csaszar, Tiffany Shierling

Journal of Higher Education & Student Affairs

We report findings from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study of transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) participants’ perceptions of their on-campus experiences. Participants reported their lived experiences of campus culture in the Deep South. The data was viewed through a minority stress framework. Four major themes emerged: a) supports for students; b) barriers for students; c) undergoing personal change; and d) influencing systemic change.

Government Lawyers May Be Prime Candidates For College And University Presidencies, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

With roughly 4,000 institutions of higher education in the United States, there is a body of literature on leadership in higher education and presidents have been studies and critiqued by biographers and by scholars, yet up until now there has been scarce attention to the documented trend of lawyers leading higher education. Within the subset of lawyer presidents, one major commonality is government law experience in their career prior to the campus presidency. This article explores the unique skills and leadership that government lawyers can offer colleges and universities and provides examples of presidents with former government experience at all …

Building Honor In Academics: Case Studies In Academic Integrity, Valery P. Denney, Camilla J. Roberts

Publications

A 360-degree look at academic integrity with case studies from professors, administrators, and students.

Building Honor in Academics: Case Studies in Academic Integrity is a collection of case studies on academic integrity from around the globe. More than case studies, the book is intended to help administrators, faculty, and students start conversations around the topic of cheating and academic integrity, and what to do when they find themselves faced with it firsthand. The case studies will come from honor code administrators, department leaders, faculty, and students across disciplines.

Written by leaders of The International Center for Academic Integrity, this book …

F Is For Feminism: Mainstreaming Feminist Leadership In Academic Libraries, Shana Higgins

Library Faculty Publications & Presentations

Gender and whiteness structure library work in ways that continue to lack sustained critical attention, particularly in the research literature on library leadership and management. In 2020 just over 83% of librarians identified as women and as white, non-Hispanic. And 78.6% of library technicians and assistants identified as white, non-Hispanic. These demographics make librarians a slightly less diverse workforce than other professionals in educational jobs. Despite being a female-intensive and overwhelmingly white profession, the scholarship on leadership and management published in mainstream library and information science journals (LIS) rarely employs explicitly feminist frameworks or perspectives. By using critical feminist analyses …

Understanding The Implications Of Work Based Learning For Students Pk-12 School Systems Institutions Of Higher Education And Hosting Organizations, David Naff, Amy Corning, Meleah Ellison, Albion Sumrell, Zehra Sahin Ilkorkor, Jennifer Murphy, Ciana Cross

MERC Publications

This literature review by the Metropolitan Educational Research Consortium (MERC) and Institute for Collaborative Research and Evaluation (ICRE), in partnership with the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (V-TOP) and State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) explores work-based learning and its implications for PK-12 institutions, institutions of higher education, and hosting organizations (e.g. employers). The report also provides background information about the foundations of work-based learning and concludes with a series of recommendations for practice, policy, and future research related to work-based learning. There is also an accompanying podcast episode where report authors discuss the key takeaways with …

Exploring The Role Of Institutional Culture In Student Affairs Assessment Practitioners’ Experiences Implementing Equity-Centered Assessment, Jaime L. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Student affairs assessment is a field in higher education that emphasizes the measurement of effectiveness and student learning in student serving programs that take place outside of the classroom. Outcomes-based assessment is the basis of most assessment practices in student affairs, and focuses on the continuous improvement of out-of-classroom programs, services, and student learning. Many assessment practices stem from traditional research methods, which have been developed by people who hold mostly majority identities. These methods were not created with the rapidly changing demographics of today’s college-going students in mind. To help address the increasing diversity of college students and the …

Exploring Supervisory Needs Of First-Generation Professionals Working In Higher Education, Angela R. Wellman

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

As first-generation students enter the workforce and traverse through their careers, their work supervisors are solidly positioned to positively influence their experiences. There is very little literature to be found that addresses the professional experiences of first-generation professionals in relation to their supervisors. The purpose of this exploratory study was to learn, directly from first-generation professionals working in higher education, what they believe they need from their supervisors to support their well-being and success. This research also sought to discover how important participants thought that each need statement was, as well to gain insight to what extent the identified needs …

Experiencing Workplace Inclusion: Critical Incidents That Create A Sense Of Inclusion For Professional Staff In Higher Education, Katherine Penn Lampley

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Professional staff make up the majority of employees at colleges and universities in the United States but are rarely the focus of research in higher education. As a result, little is known about how these employees experience the workplace, creating a challenge for educational institutions working to attract, develop, and retain this essential resource. Employees who feel included in the workplace have higher performance levels and are more likely to remain with their organizations, but workplace inclusion is a complex and undertheorized psychological phenomenon. This exploratory study provides insight into the psychological experience of inclusion by examining the experiences, interactions, …

The Importance Of Trust And Authenticity Among Stakeholders Involved In Higher Education Data Infrastructure Redevelopments: An Australian Critical Discourse Study, Elizabeth Cook

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Governments require higher education providers (HEPs) to be transparent in their use of public funds and have developed specialised higher education (HE) data infrastructure to enable the data transfer from HEPs to government departments. In 2018, Australia’s Department of Education, Skills and Employment launched Transforming the Collection of Student Information (TCSI) to enhance HE data infrastructure for student data transfer. This critical discourse study explores the discourses, discursive strategies and perspectives surrounding TCSI. Findings included HEP issues and concerns that the interviewees believed were inadequately addressed or ignored despite the Department’s claims of extensive engagement with HEPs to achieve mutually …

Developing A Healthy Masculinities Program On A University Campus, David A. Scott, Freeman Woolnough, Tony W. Cawthon

New York Journal of Student Affairs

Amid increased concerns about mental health, sexual violence, and substance use among college students, college campuses are looking toward developing targeted programming to help counteract these concerning trends. This practitioner paper highlights the development and impacts of a program at a Canadian institution, which focuses on healthy masculinity and identity development. Although still in the early stages, the feedback and observations are indicative of the powerful potential of this type of programming to improve healthy masculinity on college campuses.

Critical (Re)Approach To Higher Education Admission Policy: The Impact Of Open Enrollment Policy Implementation, Shirdonna Yvonne Lawrence

Theses and Dissertations

Federal and state policies affecting higher education, like the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1832, Brown vs. Board of Education, and Higher Education Act of 1965 have posited change regarding the proliferation of diversity and expansion of access (Thelin, 2011).

I analyzed BOT policies for enrollment and conducted a socio-diagnostic CDA on the implementation of admission policy to understand the impact of the policies’ implementation. I focused on 1) exploring how open enrollment (OE) policies were constructed, 2) how institutions adopt and interpret these policies, and 3) how individuals at the institution enact these policies, by conducting a discourse-historical analysis …

Presidential Perceptions Concerning Human Capital In College Student Enrollment And Persistence, David V. Tolliver Iii, Michael T. Miller, Daniel P. Nadler

Journal of Research on the College President

With a declining population of traditional college aged students, institutions must find both new student groups to recruit and do a better job at retaining them. One obvious pool for institutions to consider are first-generation students who do not have family traditions of going to college. This population, along with others, require institutions to understand the personal development of young adults and the factors that might lead to their college enrollment. The purpose for conducting the study was to identify how college presidents perceive the importance of human capital capacity for college students in their decision to enroll in college. …