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Moving Beyond Gpa: Alternative Measures Of Success And Predictive Factors In Honors Programs, Tom Mould, Stephen B. Deloach

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

While studies of predictive factors for success in honors have been increasingly creative and expansive on what these factors might include, they have rarely challenged the dominant, virtually monolithic definitions of success. The majority of studies measure success either by collegiate grade point averages (GPAs) or retention rates in honors, which are often contingent on collegiate GPA. For years scholars have been calling for a more nuanced and robust definition of success, yet few have taken up the charge, presumably because such data are not readily available. GPAs and retention rates are easy to access and quantify. Tracking and quantifying …

Resilience, Reconciliation, And Redemption: An Initial Historical Sketch Of Pioneering Black Students In The Plan Ii Honors Program, Richard J. Reddick, Emily A. Johnson, Ashley Jones, Tracie A.J. Lowe, Ashley N. Stone, James Thomas

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

From the inception of the integration of predominantly White institutions in higher education marked by Sweatt v. Painter in 1950, The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) has been a battleground for educational equity. The university continues to find itself at ground zero in the battle for race and equity in higher education and embroiled in the debate over affirmative action, first in Hopwood v. Texas (1996) and then in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (2013; 2016). For these reasons, UT Austin serves as a bellwether institution for public, predominantly White institutions (PWIs) when it comes to …

A Regression Model Approach To First-Year Honors Program Admissions Serving A High-Minority Population, David M. Rhea

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Many honors programs make admissions decisions based on student high school GPA and a standardized test score. However, McKay argued that standardized test scores can be a barrier to honors program participation, particularly for minority students. Minority students, particularly Hispanic and African American students, are apt to have lower standardized test scores than other ethnic groups according to the 2013 national ACT Profile Reports on “Black/African American Students” and “Hispanic/Latino Students.” Thus, honors programs that serve high-minority populations need to find new honors program solutions that will help their university community as well as encourage a high standard of academic …

First, Do No Harm, Lia Rushton

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

When I was appointed fellowships advisor at UAB back in the late 1990s and before the formation of the National Association of Fellowships Advisors, as a first order of business I spoke with the university’s few former winners and finalists about their experiences applying for nationally competitive scholarships. One such former applicant, now an accomplished professor who had graduated from our honors program a number of years prior, was evidently still haunted by his Rhodes interview as he told me about the questions he had been asked by and the answers he had given to his interviewers, answers that did …

Demography Of Honors: The Census Of U.S. Honors Programs And Colleges, Richard I. Scott, Patricia J. Smith, Andrew J. Cognard-Black

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Beginning in 2013 and spanning four research articles, we have implemented an empirical analysis protocol for honors education that is rooted in demography (Scott; Scott and Smith; Smith and Scott “Growth”; Smith and Scott, “Demography”). The goal of this protocol is to describe the structure and distribution of the honors population, but instead of a focus on aggregates of students or faculty and staff, the educational institution is the unit of analysis. This organizational demography has answered many questions about the growth of honors throughout collegiate education over time (Smith and Scott, “Growth”); documenting infrastructural and programmatic differences between honors …

Becoming Legible: Helping Students Navigate Promotional Genres Of Self-Narration, Anton Vander Zee

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The five-paragraph essay is a hard genre to love. Its inverted-triangle intro has enlightened us with too many “dawns” of some monolithic “man.” It reduces arguments, which tend to be rather subtle creatures, to the confines of a single-sentence thesis. It confects arguments in bland triplicate structure, as if any claim could be made more palatable by a perfectly bland Neapolitan blend. And it encourages seeing conclusions as a venue for gratuitous repetitions that insult the reader’s intelligence and memory alike. Beyond sponsoring these infelicities, the five-paragraph model, as Kimberly Hill Campbell notes in a recent issue of Educational Leadership …

Editor’S Introduction, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The past two decades have seen a rapid professionalization of national scholarship advising at colleges and universities. Concurrently, the number of national scholarships has increased from the few that everybody recognized— the Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, Goldwater, and Fulbright—to hundreds that target different kinds of potential applicants. While scholarship advising used to be a volunteer activity performed by a few faculty members working with a small number of students, it is now usually a distinct administrative and structural unit with its own staff, often positioned within an honors college or program and in any case working in close collaboration with honors …

Forum On “National Scholarships And Honors”

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

1. About the Authors
2. About the NCHC Monograph Series
3. NCHC Monographs & Journals
4. NCHC Publications Order Form

Hbcus: Accreditation, Governance And Survival Challenges In An Ever-Increasing Competition For Funding And Students, Jerry Crawford Ii

Journal of Research Initiatives

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) are facing challenges to their continued existence on several fronts. One is fiscally, as federal funding for education has been cut and the responsibility for paying for higher education has been levied on students and parents. Another challenge is the amount of endowment dollars available to them and lastly, there are questions today as to if HBCUs are still needed in a society that has allowed African-Americans to enroll in Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Both of these challenges are contingent on the most critical issue – accreditation. The loss of accreditation of units and …

Teachers' Understanding Of Culturally And Linguistically Differentiated Instruction For English Language Learners, Poorandai Itwaru

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A large school district in the northeastern United States struggled with teaching middle school English Language Learners (ELLs) to succeed in reading and writing. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate teachers' perceptions regarding what they could do to increase academic achievement for ELLs. The conceptual framework emerged from Weimer's learning-centered teaching, which aligns with Dewey's social constructivism. Ten purposefully sampled teachers agreed to be interviewed in the attempt to answer the research questions about instructional strategies teachers believed were best to deliver culturally and linguistically appropriate instruction for ELLs and what teachers believed could be done to …

Authors & Endmatter (Jnchc 18-1)

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

About the Authors

About the NCHC Monograph Series

NCHC Monographs & Journals

NCHC Publications Order Form

In This Issue (Back cover)

Black Excellence: Fostering Intellectual Curiosity In Minority Honors Students At A Predominantly White Research Institution, Stephen C. Scott

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As a recent alumnus of the West Virginia University Honors College, I recognize my honors experience as a multi-faceted, intellectual journey that pushed me academically, professionally, and personally to become the lifelong learner that I am today. As the only Black honors student in my graduating class, I was aware of my tokenism, especially in my honors courses, in the honors college office, in the honors learning center (testWELL Learning Center), and in university and honors college committee meetings, but I never let it bother me much. My peers misperceived me as an “Oreo”; my physical appearance was Black, yet …

Improving Literacy For Diverse Low Socio-Economic Status Middle School Students, Vivian Fowler Means

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In an urban district, Surfside School personnel were concerned that student literacy proficiency levels were low during 2011-2014 and teachers had not been able to close the achievement gap despite a focus on literacy practices and literacy professional development (PD) provided by the district. The purpose of this case study was to explore the perceptions of teachers and administrators in relation to the best instructional practices for increasing self-efficacy when teaching literacy skills and related literacy PD for teachers. Knowles' andragogy theory and Vygotsky's social learning theory formed the theoretical foundation of this study, which hold that PD should provide …

Optional Flexible Year Program And Middle School Student Achievement In Reading, Robyn Alane Fender

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Local student reading results on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness have decreased. It is of great concern that many students had less than full mastery of the prerequisite, fundamental skills in reading. The study site used the Optional Flexible Year Program for remediation of students at risk of not passing the state assessment. The purpose of this concurrent explanatory study was to explore the relationship between participation and nonparticipation in the remediation program and student reading achievement and to better understand staff perceptions regarding the remediation program. Guided by Vroom's expectancy theory of motivation, quantitative research questions …

History Teachers' Perspectives Of Time Constraints, Engagement, And Relevance In The Curriculum, Christy Mimie Davis

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Over the last 20 years, many state school administrators have reduced social studies instructional time in favor of time dedicated to reading or math skills due to the pressure of standardized testing. The purpose of this qualitative case study, which was based on constructivist theories about learning and schema theory, was to analyze teachers' perspectives on teaching history lessons, in terms of engagement and relevance, while working within new time constraints. Purposeful sampling was used to select 6 teachers for interviews; all had experience teaching social studies courses at the upper elementary and middle levels in a public school district …

Impact Of Audio Feedback Technology On Writing Instruction, Martha Marie Bless

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

High school writing teacher self-efficacy has suffered because the workload and emotional energy of grading papers is arduous, and despite their efforts to provide formative written feedback, many teachers believe students ignore or misunderstand it. Although audio feedback holds promise for improving the clarity of instructor feedback and the self-efficacy of writing instructors in higher education, its usefulness for improving high school teacher self-efficacy has remained unexplored. This multiple case study investigated how high school teachers believed Kaizena, a digital audio feedback technology, influenced their writing instruction and self-efficacy. Participants, who were drawn from the global Kaizena user base, included …

A Case Study Of Middle School Teachers' Preparations For High-Stakes Assessments, David Lee Yeary

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Students, educators, and schools across the country have been presented with challenges as a result of rigorous standards and high-complexity tests. The problem addressed in this case study was that teachers in a rural middle school in a southeastern state were preparing students to take a new high-stakes state-mandated assessment in English language arts with very little information about what should be done to best prepare students to perform well. Danielson's work on instructional leaders, Webb's work on alignment of standards and assessments, and Tankersley's research on alignment of instruction and assessment provided the frameworks for the study. The participants …

Journal Of The National Collegiate Honors Council, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Fall/Winter 2016) [Complete Issue]

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In This Issue

Forum Articles

AP, Dual Enrollment, and the Survival of Honors Education •Annmarie Guzy

Rethinking Honors Curriculum in Light of the AP/IB/Dual Enrollment Challenge: Innovation and Curricular Flexibility •David Coleman and Katie Patton

Using Hybrid Courses to Enhance Honors Offerings in the Disciplines •Karen D. Youmans

A Dual Perspective on AP, Dual Enrollment, and Honors •Heather C. Camp and Giovanna E. Walters

Got AP? •Joan Digby

AP: Not a Replacement for Challenging College Coursework •Margaret Walsh

Research Essays

The ICSS and the Development of Black Collegiate Honors Education …

Front Matter, Vol. 17, No. 2

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Cover

Mast Head

Contents

Call for Papers

Editorial Policy

Submission Guidelines

Dedication - Dail W. Mullins Jr.

Front Matter, Vol. 17, No. 1

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Cover

Mast Head

Contents

Call for Papers

Editorial Policy

Submission Guidelines

Dedication - Richard Badenhausen

Bearers Of Diverse Ecclesiologies: Imagining Catholic School Students As Informing A Broader Articulation Of Catholic School Aims, Graham P. Mcdonough

Journal of Catholic Education

The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive, although not exhaustive, picture of the kinds of real concerns and concurrently inferred ecclesiological perspectives practicing Catholic students have. It reports findings from an interview study with 16 students at a private Catholic high school in Canada who self-identify as Catholic in order to demonstrate that it is in a Catholic school’s best interest not to rely on narrow or singular definitions of Catholic identity, especially insofar as these are tied to minimal and external markers of institutional affiliation. While the sample’s size and particularity do not generalizing to a …

Immersions In Global Equality And Social Justice: A Model Of Change, Kevin Guerrieri, Sandra Sgoutas-Emch

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

In the work for global equality and social justice, how should “change” be understood? Who determines what must change or be changed? In the efforts to carry out social change, what is the academy’s relationship with the community, society at large, and the broader world? This article parts from these and other key questions and then proposes a model of change that can be used as a lens for examining any project, program, or organization with the aim of creating positive change that is meaningful, sustainable, and holistic. The article provides both an explanation of the underlying interdisciplinary theoretical framework …

The Spirituality Of Immersion: Solidarity, Compassion, Relationship, Michael E. Lovette-Colyer

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

While the term spirituality can be problematic, obscuring as much as revealing, immersion experiences cannot be understood fully without exploring the contours of what can only be described as spirituality. To the extent that they work, immersions effect change when they speak to the deepest longings of the heart. While manifesting in many different ways, the spirituality of immersion revolves around three major components: solidarity, compassion, and relationship. The spirituality of immersion is a developed relationality, a desire to enter into richer, wider, more expansive relationships with others, which naturally leads into deeper relationship with God.

Reflections On Skipping Stones To Diving Deep: The Process Of Immersion As A Practice, Judith Liu Dr

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

Reflecting upon over 30 years of teaching courses with a community service-learning and engagement component, this article is a personal piece that explores the author’s journey through voluntarism, community service-learning and civic engagement, and how that path has led to embracing immersion as a critical pedagogical practice for community engagement.

Engaged Pedagogy: Reflections From A Barriologist, Rigoberto Reyes

Engaging Pedagogies in Catholic Higher Education (EPiCHE)

This essay offers advice to University faculty and administrators on how best to implement the work of engaged pedagogy and community development work. The author is an established activist and community organizer for the past 40 years. His most important recommendation when doing the work of community engagement is to begin work that starts and benefits the community.

Beyond Behavior, Craig C. Laupheimer

Scholarship and Engagement in Education

Teaching to engage students with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can inspire the whole classroom and make teaching and learning engaging and exciting. Although teachers and students alike face a challenging educational landscape, much can be done to empower students with special needs. Teaching with the whole classroom in mind with an emphasis on hands on, explorative and inspirational learning experiences to accommodate for these students strengthens and causes student engagement and agency. This article highlights the challenges and potential breakthroughs possible for classroom instruction specifically where the ADHD student is concerned and looks towards teaching mindfulness and empowerment as …

A Tradition Unlike Any Other: Research On The Value Of An Honors Senior Thesis, H. Kay Banks

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

If you are a fan of golf and, more specifically, the Masters Golf Tournament, then the title of this article should sound familiar. As an avid sports fan and an occasional golf player, when I hear those words I immediately think of green grass, Tiger Woods’s first green jacket, and the soft-spoken Dr. Condeleeza Rice as the newest member of the Augusta National Golf Club (home of the Masters for non-golf fans). The Masters is the first of four major U.S. golf tournaments played each year, a tradition going back to 1934. What makes this tournament quintessential to the sport …

Honors And Non-Honors Student Engagement: A Model Of Student, Curricular, And Institutional Characteristics, Ellen Buckner, Melanie Shores, Michael Sloane, John Dantzler, Catherine Shields, Karen Shader, Bradley Newcomer

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors administrators may ask whether honors experiences facilitate student growth and whether honors students are inherently smarter than non-honors students and hence more able to seize these opportunities for growth. Although these questions will never fully be answered, we designed the current study to address the underlying topics of student characteristics and engagement in honors within the larger university.

Students’ motivation, their willingness to extend beyond the minimal level, significantly influences engagement. Honors students are engaged in experiences, curricular and extracurricular, that promote development, and the types of additional opportunities available to honors students and the feedback they receive affect …

“Flee From The Worship Of Idols”: Becoming Christian In Roman Corinth, Dorvan Byler

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The religious contexts in which early Christian communities grew were important factors in the first-century development of Christianity, affecting what it meant to become a Christian either as a convert from a background in Judaism or as a convert from a background in Greek, Roman, or Egyptian cults. Surrounding religions and cultural norms strongly influenced the first Christian communities in urban environments throughout the Roman Empire because the first generation of Christian converts came directly from other religious constructs. As the early Christians distinguished themselves from the Diaspora Jewish communities in which they originated and actively pursued Gentile converts, the …

Writing Instruction And Assignments In An Honors Curriculum: Perceptions Of Effectiveness, Edward J. Caropreso, Mark Haggerty, Melissa Ladenheim

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Learning to write well is a significant outcome of higher education, as confirmed and illustrated in the Written Communication VALUE Rubric of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Bennett notes that writing well is a singularly important capability, indicating that virtually all higher education programs intend for students to write better when they graduate than when they enrolled. Moskovitz refers to an AAC&U survey of member institutions in which writing topped the list of learning outcomes for all students.

Scholars agree that writing and thinking are linked. Oatley and Djikic discuss how writing externalizes thinking by using various …