Since the 1980s, the Maryland Collegiate Honors Council has offered an annual conference on a host campus in late February. In 2020, MCHC slipped in the conference just before the apocalyptic arrival of COVID-19 in March. Because this conference is hugely popular statewide, we decided to organize it virtually in 2021. Our topic--"In…

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"…

The seeming lack of connection between honors and gifted education has puzzled us for some time. Both of us incorporated gifted education and higher education into our doctoral studies, and both of our dissertations used gifted education theories as lenses into the honors student experience. Our lives as researchers and higher education…

Honors graduates have much to learn when transitioning into their first position after college. For instance, workplaces have an entirely different culture and set of expectations from undergraduate honors classrooms. Furthermore, the skills they need to become successful employees or graduate students are different from those required of…

This article describes the strategies employed to make a university-wide commitment to student success, persistence, and graduation rates. The shift in culture has made student success everybody's business, and there has been a high level of buy-in to the enterprise. The predictive tools that have been developed have given focus to serving those…

The fall 2014 entering honors class as Westminster College was drawn from the largest applicant pool in the program's almost three-decade history. Far from focusing on perks, 68% of these entering students claimed it was the interesting honors curriculum that caused them to submit an application. As for the larger applicant pool itself, the top…

The popularity of service learning has grown in recent years, as educators place more value on active and experiential forms of learning. Service learning is learning conducted through service work in a community setting in combination with coursework that frames the service experience with respect to civic engagement and political power. Yet…

In this design case, we describe our work to design and develop a socio-scientific issue (SSI) based unit of instruction for use in high school biology. Our team includes university based science educators, an experienced classroom teacher, and a microbiologist. The unit focuses on antibiotic resistant bacteria as a context for student exploration…

This article presents an effective model for a manageable interdisciplinary project that shows students the connections among art, English, and other disciplines; gives composition students an external audience for their writing; and emphasizes the importance of research in the process of creating arguments and art. This interdisciplinary project…

City as Text™, the experiential learning program developed by the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Honors Semesters Committee, has been adopted and adapted by hundreds if not thousands of educational institutions throughout the United States and beyond. This essay discusses how, having served on the Honors Semesters Committee, Michaela…

Interdisciplinary approaches do not merely satisfy an abstract longing; in post-educational life--especially in a secular, Western, post-modern culture--young people must confront complex issues that transcend any one discipline. Educational systems accordingly have a duty to offer frameworks for understanding this complexity that go beyond any…

K-12 education has identified an important need for culturally relevant practices among underrepresented minority students in the classroom. Research has shown that minority students perform better in multicultural learning environments that place an emphasis on addressing both the student's social and academic needs. Accordingly, Central State…

Seven years and 645 students since its inception, the Honors Program at Jackson State University has helped raise the ACT and SAT average scores of its student body by attracting better prepared students formerly lost to more affluent white institutions. (MLW)

Outlines principles that guide a successful undergraduate economics honors program: simplicity, accessibility, skill development, risk minimization, and incentives to combat procrastination. Describes a model which specifies three of the usual six electives and requires a senior thesis that makes an original contribution to economics…

Describes the development of a model for improving the calculus achievement of minority group college students currently used by 25 institutions of higher learning. Utilizes group study and an "honors class," rather than a remedial approach. (FMW)