Honors and General Education

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Honors and General Education

• A Brief History
• 2006 to 2008

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History

• April, 2006 The Honors Program proposed a
  General Education Pathway to the General
  Education Council (GEC). The GEC approved the
  pathway. However, the Faculty Senates rejection
  of the proposed Honors College had an impact on
  the Honors General Education Pathway since it
  presumed in a number of decisive points the
  existence of an Honors College.
• March, 2007 Honors presented a revision of the
  pathway to the GEC requesting provisional
  approval. The GEC approved the request. Honors
  began piloting the pathway in Fall, 2007.
• October, 2008 Honors presented a revised
  curriculum proposal along with responses to the
  2007 GEC provisions. The GEC voted to recommend
  final approval of the Honors General Education
  Pathway to the Faculty Senate.

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2006 Pathway Model 40 credits
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2007 Revisions

• The third Threshold strand was put in abeyance
• The meta courses were eliminated
• The quantitative analysis outcome would be
  satisfied by courses taken in the Mathematics
  Department or in other departments offering
  courses that have been approved by the GEC as
  teaching to the outcome
• The Program would admit students into the
  mid-career and concluding-capstone sectors
  of the Honors curriculum.
• In 2006-2007, the Honors Faculty Council revised
  the Honors General Education Pathway and either
  excised or put in abeyance some aspects of the
  original college-pathway and also introduced new
  features. The most salient aspects and features
  were

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2007 Pathway Model 39-40 Credits
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2008 Pathway Model 38 Credits
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Quantitative Reasoning

• The work of a multi-disciplinary group of USM
  faculty (Computer Science, Math, Physics,
  Classics, Philosophy) during AY 07-08 resulted in
  the design of a new course, HON 105 Calculating
  and Reasoning with Symbolic Representations
  designed to meet entry level Honors program
  objectives and the Goals and Outcomes of General
  Education at USM. This course has been approved
  by the Honors Faculty Council and will be piloted
  in Spring 09.

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Honors in The Major

• The faculty council decided that the
  Honors-in-the-Major item in the 07 proposal
  represented an element lingering from the Honors
  College Proposal and that it should be dropped
  from the curriculum for the following reasons
  1)there is a lack of clarity regarding intended
  learning outcomes for this course 2) integration
  between the Honors GenEd pathway and students
  majors is accomplished through the thesis
  requirement 3)the course creates confusion
  between Honors as a GenEd pathway and the
  different model of departmental Honors.

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Characterizing the Honors Thesis

• The thesis in Honors is required. Each student
  must complete an interdisciplinary research
  project that integrates the work in their
  majors/professional aspirations with Honors
  general education. Thesis work is designed to
  meet each of the Honors program objectives at the
  integrated level
• Community participate in a multi-disciplinary
  thesis community of students and faculty
  organized around research and writing
  demonstrate leadership, arriving at his or her
  own collaboratively achieved position
• Communication advances and deepens writing
  skills composes/writes/performs a clear, concise
  and articulate interdisciplinary thesis and
  defends in a public forum
• Wellness/Meaningful Life completing a project
  that matters that integrates students studies
  and launches them into various communities
• Interdisciplinary Learning work demonstrates
  subjective engagement and focuses on synthesis,
  insight and construction of meaning
• Engaged Inquiry demonstrates ability to design,
  execute and interpret a research project and
  communicate results effectively in multiple
  media produce a project characterized by the
  ability to critique, integrate and synthesize
  multiple viewpoints and to justify ones mode of
  inquiry.

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Resources

• 2007 proposal reads as follows
• Minimally, the Honors Pathway will need teaching
  power to deliver one to two sections of the new
  course Hon301. As the pathway grows to
  accommodate more students, increased teaching
  power will be necessary to deliver added sections
  of Entry-Level and Mid-Career courses.
• To effectively deliver its Body sequence in a
  general education curriculum, Honors will need to
  arrange for laboratory resources, including
  course fees for laboratory materials. This may
  extend to a shared laboratory space arrangement
  or eventual creation of an interdisciplinary
  science laboratory dedicated to honors use.
• 2008 Revision
• Full pathway implementation requires common
  resources for further development of assessment
  practices this has become apparent in the
  experiences of the USM Core and the Lewiston
  Common Core.
• With current enrollments, we have not and will
  not require any additional funds to offer the
  full set of courses in this curriculum. For
  example, by working more closely with the USM
  Biology Department, Honors currently has access
  to the laboratory resources needed to support the
  program. If and when our enrollments increase,
  we will explore options such as creative class
  scheduling to fit with the high demands on
  laboratory resources at USM.

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Why a Separate Pathway?

• It facilitates our efforts to recruit students.
• It allows students to complete all of their
  general education requirements in Honors
• It allows us to present Honors as an alternative
  to the USM core and to describe the curriculum
  accurately in terms of its distinctive curricular
  design.

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Response to Concerns of elitism

• Visiting Libra Scholar Lee Knefelkamp suggested
  that we take on a focused exploration of elitism.
• Honors Faculty Council Response Given the work
  load and performance expectations held for
  students in Honors, USM faculty who teach in
  Honors endorse the selective character of the
  program. As USM tries to meet the varied
  educational needs of all our students, the
  purpose of the Honors program is to meet the
  needs of those students who seek the intellectual
  challenge of participating in small seminar
  course, the demands of close reading and
  intensive writing, and who wish to engage in the
  year long independent research project required
  by the thesis. Faculty address the question of
  the value added by an Honors education in terms
  drawn from the literature on interdisciplinary
  pedagogy. For the talented and well prepared
  students who seek the learning experiences we
  provide, the USM Honors program is primarily
  concerned with fostering in students a sense of
  self-authorship and a situated, partial, and
  perspectival notion of knowledge that they can
  use to respond to complex questions, issues, or
  problems (Haynes, 2002, p. xvi).
• Further, to meet the guidelines and criteria for
  General Education, the USM Honors program is
  changing in significant ways. (i.e., transfer
  students at mid-career and concluding phases of
  the curriculum shift to learning outcomes) In
  requesting final approval as a Gen Ed pathway, we
  hope to increase enrollment in the program and
  increase the number of USM faculty who teach in
  Honors.

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Characterizing Honors at USM

• Lee Kneflekamp also suggested we develop a
  one-page summary of what distinguishes our
  pathway from others.
• What are we?
• a vertically integrated, interdisciplinary
  curriculum
• a thesis requirement
• every course uses the seminar format
• an intentional co-curriculum
• a system of close advising and mentoring
• student-centered
• a learning community
• What are we not?
• not a set of harder versions of disciplinary
  courses
• not an extension of high school AP courses