The transition in learning trajectories, academic pressures and stressors associated with financial and societal pressure that South African postgraduate university students experience places them at risk of mental health difficulties. For these students, their mental well-being has been further threatened due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the…

A recent (2020) report by the Modern Language Association addresses the ethical treatment of graduate students in the humanities, and the author considers this in the context of honors students and faculty. Lamenting missed opportunities for in-person group presentations, student-led Socratic circles, and final individual presentations during the…

While the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) supports routine, systematic program review, research suggests that only about half of honors programs engage in some form of assessment. This study examines the current state of honors program evaluation by gauging honors administrators' perceptions of program review and assessing the impact of…

Honors education in America has undergone a process that sociologist Theodore Caplow describes as professionalization. Caplow identifies four stages whereby a developing profession transitions to a professional association: organizing membership, changing the name of occupation from its previous status, developing a code of ethics, and after a…

This essay rejects any notion of professionalization in honors programs and colleges as well as any plan for the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) that is connected to implementing a process of certification or accreditation. The author offers historical details about the machinations of a small group of powerful NCHC officers who tried to…

Students who begin in honors do not always complete program requirements. As an investigation into student retention, the author introduces a degree-planning workshop into a freshman seminar. The study involves two groups of students from different incoming classes: one (2018) participating in their degree-planning through the workshop and the…

This paper explores the revision of an existing Honors Program (HP) that includes the possible creation of a first-year, second semester course. Inherent in this course is the premise of Design Thinking (DT) that provided the students the opportunity to not only design the course, but to also implement Design Thinking in order to create an…

Authors examine the impact of honors education on four early career scholars who each spent two years in a postdoctoral position (2017-2023), highlighting how initial in-depth exposure to honors curricula and culture positively influences professional identity and teaching practice. Fellowships in a Teaching, Research, and Mentoring (TRM) Program…

Purpose: As sustainability teaching and learning rises in importance, an increasing number of higher education institutions (HEIs) are assessing the effectiveness of their approach to sustainability education. However, most assessments fall short in determining the impacts of curriculum plans on learning outcomes. Therefore, this study aims to…

This collaboration between the dance and learning technology departments at Bath Spa University, sought to develop a dance repertoire module with the use of mobile technologies, in order to enhance collaborative and discursive opportunities for students. The introduction of mobile technologies into a face-to-face teaching environment initiated a…

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"…

What follows is a slightly revised version of a story that Ted Estess read at the ceremony honoring his retirement after thirty-one years from the position of Dean of the Honors College at the University of Houston. The story, as he explained to those assembled, was written some years ago in Colorado, where he spent time most summers with his…

The leadership responsibility for coordinating a multi-campus honors program or college can be complex, and it needs to succeed in an atmosphere of mutual respect and flexibility. The work can be broken down into several key components: institutional context, quality standards, curriculum, faculty selection, student mobility, communication,…

These student-led, co-curricular programs are designed to give honors students the opportunity to learn and practice civil discourse through difficult conversations. Issues such as race, religion, politics, gender, and sexual orientation are carefully curated to help students practice and hone their dialogue skills outside the classroom where…

The purpose of this quantitative research was to determine if there are differences in scores on the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale among undergraduate students involved in honors leadership programs at a four-year university. The study was an analysis of students' reported resilience scores in relation to the number of leadership activities in…