Liberal Studies Commons^™

The Grizzly, February 4, 2016, Brian Thomas, Leighnah L. Perkins, Deana Harley, Alexandria Sutton, William Diciurcio, Jay Farrell, Jim Yichi Zhang, Jordan Ostrum, Rachel Dickinson, Maddie Mathay, Joy Jones, Andrew Tran, Hunter Gellman, Cory Rogers

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Ursinus to Host Popular Author • Clearing the Path to a Career • Companies and Grad Schools Seek Out Ursinus Alumni • International Perspective: Cultural Differences in Parties • Businesses Offer Student Discounts • Talking About Depression with Nuance • Fighting Off the Freshman Fifteen • Ups and Downs of Being an RA in Reimert • New Face on Campus • Opinion: The Elephants Aren't in the Room: Poll Probes Pupils on Pressing Politics • From Across the Atlantic • Dynamic Duo

Spectators Or Patriots? Citizens In The Information Age, Amrita Dhawan

Publications and Research

In theory, a strong democracy rests on robust citizen participation. The practice in most democracies is quite different. This gap presents a challenge, which can be narrowed by augmenting civic education to bring it up to date with the current information environment and thus give citizens the opportunity to participate. Robert Dahl’s work on democracy provides a model that looks at this problem structurally. He writes about the ideals and the actual institutions necessary for a democracy and if we situate his model in the modern information environment we get a better idea of how to improve civic education. Successful …

Does Goal Setting With Elementary Students Impact Reading Growth, Ronnie A. Dotson

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A capstone submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education in the College of Education at Morehead State University by Ronnie A. Dotson on February 1, 2016.

Florida’S Leaders Wrong About Liberal Arts, Janet M. Riggs

From the Desk of President Riggs

Once again, a prominent politician from Florida has provided an excellent opportunity to talk about the value of a liberal arts education.

In 2011, Florida Gov. Rick Scott commented about not needing any more anthropology majors. Around the same time, Florida State Sen. Don Gaetz referred to psychology and political science majors as “degrees that don’t mean much.” [excerpt]

The Grizzly, January 28, 2016, Brian Thomas, Deana Harley, Jay Farrell, Chi-E Low, Yuqing Liu, Valerie Osborne, Sarah Hojsak, Berett C. Babrich, Sean Campbell, Johnny Cope, Hunter Gellman

Ursinus College Grizzly Newspaper, 1978 to Present

Student Raises Funds to Prevent Suicide • Tragedy Prompts Main Street Changes • Ursinus Introduces Open Access Publishing System • Ursinus Welcomes Alumni as Entrepreneur-in-Residence • International Perspective: Differences in Friendships Across Cultures • "Rare Bird" Exhibit Migrates to Berman • Coasting Through Costa Rica • Opinions: Everyone's an Activist on Facebook; Letter from an Alumnus: Guns; Film Review: "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Rates 7 / 10 • Women's Indoor Track and Field Ready to Run • Vaulting Into Action

Gettysburg: Our College's Magazine Winter 2016, Communications & Marketing

Gettysburg: Our College’s Magazine

From the President Janet Morgan Riggs '77

Table of Contents

Science Woman to Women: Scholarships for Aspiring Scientists (Judith Keyes Guss-Nelson ’60, P’89; Kirsten A. Guss ’89; Kayla Britt '17)

Julia Hendon: Anthropology and Director of the Johnson Center for Creative Teaching and Learning Professor Julie Hendon

There is No Orange Without Blue Candace Connors Vorhaus ’80

The 411: Bill Heyman '74, P'13 (Bill Heyman '74, P'13)

According to You: Alumni Survey Results

G-burg Interns Stand Out (Len Gemma ’81)

Binational Bio (Samantha Siomko ’17; Prof. Paula “Alex” Trillo)

Gettysburgreat: The Campaign for Our College

Sounding a Chord of Hope …

2016 Ruby Yearbook, Briana Keane, Rebecca L. Brown, Phoebe French, Romina Kalmeijer, Faraha Rathod, Taylor Manferdini, Ursinus College Senior Class

The Ruby Yearbooks, 1897-2020

A digitized copy of the 2016 Ruby, the Ursinus College yearbook.

2016 Celebration Of Inquiry Program, Coastal Carolina University

Celebration of Inquiry

12th Celebration of Inquiry, April 11-16, 2016. Theme: Beyond Borders: Living in a Global Society. 8th Annual Undergraduate Research Competition abstracts and schedule are included in the program, but not separated from the general schedule.

Course-Based Science Research Promotes Learning In Diverse Students At Diverse Institutions, Nancy L. Staub, Lawrence S. Blumer, Christopher W. Beck, Veronique A. Delesalle, Gerald D. Griffin, Robert B. Merritt, Bettye Sue Hennington, Wendy H. Grillo, Gail P. Hollowell, Sandra L. White, Catherine M. Mader

Biology Faculty Publications

Course-based research experiences (CREs) are powerful strategies for spreading learning and improving persistence for all students, both science majors and nonscience majors. Here we address the crucial components of CREs (context, discovery, ownership, iteration, communication, presentation) found across a broad range of such courses at a variety of academic institutions. We also address how the design of a CRE should vary according to the background of student participants; no single CRE format is perfect. We provide a framework for implementing CREs across multiple institutional types and several disciplines throughout the typical four years of undergraduate work, designed to a variety …

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 …

Variability And Similarity In Honors Curricula Across Institution Size And Type, Andrew J. Cognard-Black, Hallie Savage

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As Samuel Schuman argues in his seminal introduction to honors administration, “The single most important feature of any honors program is its people: the students who learn there and the faculty who teach them” (33). Next, argues Schuman, comes the curriculum; the context of the learning that takes place when honors faculty and honors students come together is framed by the curriculum. Honors curricula provide opportunities for honors students to endeavor challenges beyond what traditional undergraduate curricula provide. For faculty, honors is a unique opportunity to blend research and teaching and to provide a curricular laboratory for experimenting with varied …

Honors Teachers And Academic Identity: What To Look For When Recruiting Honors Faculty, Rocky Dailey

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The word “honors” naturally carries distinction. To be a collegiate honors student implies a higher level of academic achievement than other students as well as the more challenging academic experience that comes with smaller class sizes. Collegiate honors teachers have a distinction of their own. Being an honors teacher implies a high level of teaching achievement, and it requires special traits that honors directors need to look for in recruiting faculty. Guidance in determining what traits best characterize excellence in honors teaching is a useful tool for honors administrators who are trying to create an identity for their honors faculty.

How Gender Differences Shape Student Success In Honors, Susan E. Dinan

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In 2014, Jonathan Zimmerman published an op-ed in the Christian Science Monitor in which he wrote, “The last time I checked, [men] held most of the important positions of power and influence in American society. And yet, college admissions offices lower the standard for young men—effectively raising it for women—simply to make sure that the men keep coming.” This comment was not surprising as, seven years earlier, the U.S. News & World Report had published “Many Colleges Reject Women at Higher Rates Than For Men,” in which Alex Kingsbury memorably asserted:

Using undergraduate admissions rate data collected from more than …

Research On Honors Composition, 2004–2015, Annmarie Guzy

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The spring/summer 2004 issue of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC) was devoted exclusively to research in honors education. The issue was divided into three sections: the introductory Forum on Research in Honors, which revisited three essays published in Forum for Honors in 1984 and included two 2004 responses; Research in Honors; and Research about Honors. After I had revised my dissertation for the 2003 NCHC monograph Honors Composition: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Practices, I incorporated some of my unused dissertation material for two pieces in the issue, one being a response essay in the Forum, …

Blogging To Develop Honors Students’ Writing, Sarah Harlan-Haughey, Taylor Cunningham, Katherine Lees, Andrew Estrup

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

After an exciting class discussion, you might want students to write conventional papers directed at you and focused ultimately on a grade, or you might prefer that they bring their further insights to their classmates, continuing and enriching the ongoing class collaboration. Blogging is an excellent way to implement the second option, continuing an exchange of ideas and providing students with another tool to improve their writing skills. Student class blogging offers many benefits—for student and instructor alike—compared to assigning conventional papers directed only at the instructor. The collaborative writing and peer editing inherent in blogging offer challenges as well …

Toward A Science Of Honors Education, Beata M. Jones

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As Sam Schuman wrote in 2004 and as George Mariz points out in his lead essay for this issue of JNCHC, the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) and academics alike have long recognized the importance of research in honors. Cambridge Dictionary Online defines “research” as “a detailed study of a subject in order to discover information or achieve a new understanding of it.” Given the roots of U.S. honors in the liberal arts, U.S. practitioners who have written for JNCHC have often been driven by the research models of their home disciplines. With fifteen years’ worth of publications, JNCHC contains …

An Examination Of Student Engagement And Retention In An Honors Program, Jessica A. Kampfe, Christine L. Chasek, John Falconer

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Honors programs at colleges and universities provide academic and developmental opportunities for high-ability students. Learning communities, defined as a group of students who live together, are connected through membership in a common organization, and take classes together, are often a component of honors programs. Learning communities provide an academic and social community that complements curricular requirements. At the University of Nebraska at Kearney (UNK), a higher education institution in the Midwest, ninety percent of the freshman honor students live together and ninety-five percent take an honors class in their first semester on campus. The honors program at UNK is classified …

Editor’S Introduction, Vol. 17, No. 1, Ada Long

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

During the sixteen years since JNCHC came into being, research in honors has steadily shifted its focus and approach. In the early days, essays represented a wide variety of disciplines and, in order to qualify as research, needed only to root themselves in previous literature on a topic. As honors, along with the culture in which it is practiced, moved into the era of accountability and assessment, “research in honors” has increasingly come to mean quantitative studies rooted in the formats, methods, and terminology of the social sciences. The purpose of research in honors has also shifted, more subtly, from …

An Agenda For The Future Of Research In Honors, George Mariz

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Research in honors has become a priority for the National Collegiate Honors Council, and the phrase presents the honors community with an interesting ambiguity about the appropriate focus for future studies. Potential topics might include the progress of honors students in comparison to their non-honors cohorts; the criteria for selecting honors faculty; and the relationship between honors and its institutional context. The best methodologies might include statistical studies, qualitative analyses, or both. Future research in honors might reflect past practices or set a new trend in both topics and methodologies. As the NCHC launches its next fifty years, the time …

Demography Of Honors: The National Landscape Of Honors Education, Richard Ira Scott, Patricia J. Smith

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) celebrates its fiftieth year, the organization has an excellent opportunity to reflect on how honors education has spread during its history. Tracking growth in the number of institutions delivering honors education outside of its membership has not been a priority for NCHC or for researchers in honors education. Most information has been anecdotal, and when researchers have mounted surveys, the results are frequently non-comprehensive, based on convenience sampling. We propose a demography of honors to fill the lacuna with systemic, reliable information.

Demographic studies describe the size, structure, and distribution of human populations, …

From Orientation Needs To Developmental Realities: The Honors First-Year Seminar In A National Context, Anton Vander Zee, Trisha Folds-Bennett, Elizabeth Meyer-Bernstein, Brendan Reardon

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

The transition into college remains one of the most formative and complex phases in an individual’s life. Institutions of higher learning have responded to the challenges facing first-year students in myriad ways, most often by offering summer orientation programs, dynamic living-learning environments, tailored academic and psychological support services, and dedicated first-year seminars (FYSs) that seek to engage students in a range of curricular and co-curricular experiences. FYSs—courses intended to enhance the academic skills and/or social development of first-year college students—have become the curricular anchors grounding this broad array of programming. While addressing the developmental needs of first-year students is the …

Research In, On, Or About Honors, Marygold Walsh-Dilley

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

In his thought provoking essay in this issue, George Mariz makes a call for “devoting some serious attention to setting an agenda for honors research.” He tells us that research in honors is a lot less common than it would appear to a casual observer, writing that “Both narrative and statistical accounts of honors are so far inadequate to yield useful conclusions.” Honors administrators, he contends, need this sort of analysis in order to “be able to argue with hard evidence for the . . . demonstrable advantages of honors.” As a result of these concerns, he writes, “Research in …

Assessing Growth Of Student Reasoning Skills In Honors, Jeanneane Wood-Nartker, Shelly Hinck, Ren Hullender

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Assessment and evaluation practices within honors programs have attracted considerable attention within the honors academic community, e.g., the spring/summer 2006 volume of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council. Calls for carefully created and constructed assessment activities within honors programs have met with mixed responses by directors who identify the difficulty in assessing decentralized, complex learning environments, noting that standard measures such as tests, surveys, or essays are not always applicable or appropriate in addressing honors assessment needs, especially in areas of social justice, service learning, and community engagement (Corley & Zubizarreta; Lanier). Acknowledging the hesitancy of honors directors …

A Dual Perspective On Ap, Dual Enrollment, And Honors, Heather C. Camp, Giovanna E. Walters

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

As co-authors of this response to Annmarie Guzy’s essay, we provide different vantage points on prior-credit programs that arise from our distinct roles on campus, and together we suggest the appropriate way forward for honors. To represent our unique perspectives and to mimic the ongoing back-and-forth on this topic on our campus and elsewhere, we have chosen to format our response as a dialogue, thus suggesting some of the multiple voices and angles on AP, dual enrollment, and honors.

Both of us have felt the impact of AP and dual enrollment programs and have worried about its implications for both …

Rethinking Honors Curriculum In Light Of The Ap/Ib/Dual Enrollment Challenge: Innovation And Curricular Flexibility, David Coleman, Katie Patton

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Annmarie Guzy’s lead article for this volume speaks of a familiar challenge in the Eastern Kentucky University Honors Program. The nearly universal and dramatic increase in the number of AP, IB, and/or Dual Enrollment credit hours among our incoming first-year honors students over the past two decades served as the primary impetus for a major curricular overhaul within our program in 2013. The result—what we call our new (post-2013) “Honors Flex” curriculum—was initially a source of considerable anxiety among many of our faculty as well as some of our students and alumni. In retrospect, however, we are able to see …

Got Ap?, Joan Digby

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

One of the first questions I ask prospective students is whether they have taken any AP or college courses in high school. The question itself frequently generates lines of tension in a student’s face while parents erupt into proud smiles. The difference can generally tell me whose idea it was to take AP or college courses and to what degree they considered them a benefit in gaining college admission and scholarship funding.

Families, especially those considering sending their children to a private four-year university, need all the help they can get in funding college. At my institution, four years without …

The Icss And The Development Of Black Collegiate Honors Education In The U.S., Traci L. M. Dula

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council Online Archive

Precursor to the NCHC, the Inter-University Committee on the Superior Student (ICSS) was active from 1957 to 1965 under the leadership of Joseph Cohen at the University of Colorado. As NCHC culminates fifty years of supporting collegiate honors education, its historical context needs to include the contributions to honors from a unique group of institutions, the nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). While scholars of collegiate honors education understand Frank Aydelotte, Swarthmore’s seventh president, to have started “a trend in honors among American colleges and universities” (Rinn 70), the honors literature does not provide evidence of Aydelotte’s engagement with …