The partnership that the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) entered into with the National Park Service (NPS) almost a decade ago, when the Partners in the Parks (PITP) program was created, has immeasurably enriched the lives of undergraduate honors students and faculty from throughout the United States and abroad. This second edition of…

Tracking and other practices of homogeneously grouping students by so-called ability level remain a norm in American classrooms, despite decades of research highlighting how they disserve and even harm student learning. Heterogeneous grouping, by contrast, benefits struggling learners, a conclusion supported by a substantial body of research. Some…

While access to higher education (HE) has substantially increased over the past number of years, the evidence suggests that social inequalities continue to be reproduced in terms of course level, field of study and institutional status. This paper examines, through the lens of Social Reproduction Theory, the socio-economic background and HE access…

Why are students silent in class? "Silence" refers to those who do not participate verbally in discussions or ask questions, those who attend classes and by the end of semester leave without having said a word. Janice Cools has always wanted to understand the culture of silent students in her writing classrooms but had never directly…

Selecting an undergraduate institution in the United States has been one of the most challenging experiences in college students and their families' lives. Students must weigh in both academic and non-academic factors during the college selection process. Once students have selected a 2-year or 4-year institutions, they are required to take a set…

Using survey data collected from 269 participants in the fall of 2016 and the spring of 2017, this study examines whether any changes might have occurred within the last 20 years regarding the disciplinary affiliation of honors administrators. Additionally, we explored current assessment practices of honors administrators and possible associations…

In the ever-growing discussion of how to build and support honors programs that reflect the diverse communities our institutions serve, the recruitment of transfer students has only recently been identified as a key avenue to enacting more equitable programs. Reflecting on four years of recruiting, enrolling, and graduating transfer students in…

This article reviews recent efforts to implement the William & Mary English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum within the Paradise Valley Unified School District gifted programs. The programs include self-contained gifted, as well as content replacement programs in Title 1 and Non-Title 1 schools. Each delivery model modified the constructs of the…

Over the past three years, honors faculty at South Florida State College, a two-year college offering a limited number of workforce baccalaureates, have reinvented their program. Rather than the themed seminars and exploratory courses popular with an earlier generation, our honors courses now offer students project-based, faculty-guided…

Today's young people are sophisticated consumers in the higher education marketplace. They are seeking "above and beyond" academic experiences such as study abroad and undergraduate research. They are looking for a personalized academic experience, and they aspire to be in community with others who share a similar sense of purpose and…

Honors programs, like the institutions that host them, need to exercise constant re-examination to remain effective and to serve their students the best they can. As a private, liberal arts institution, in the tradition of the Irish Catholic Christian Brothers, Iona College provides many avenues to enhance student learning, and paramount to the…

At a time when higher education is more expensive than ever and the value of the liberal arts has been called into question, it might seem paradoxical to argue that honors--generally offering its students' large merit scholarships and small classes--is an asset to the university. However, the prestige of a university benefits both from the high…

The Southeastern Oklahoma State University Honors Program serves a unique role in a small, rural setting such as Durant, Oklahoma. The honors program has a traditional mission in a university that offers a nontraditional setting and history within the context of higher education. The program thus offers special rewards to its students and to the…

The Oral Roberts University Honors Program attracts a significant number of students each year, both as incoming freshmen and currently enrolled students, seeking a richer academic experience. While the honors program offers a higher-level academic challenge, its value lies beyond what is simply learned in the classroom. The program contributes to…

Emory & Henry College has demonstrated that honors, far from being elitist, benefits all the students on campus. The faculty of Emory & Henry College established the honors program in 2009 to provide an enhanced academic experience for the college's best students. The program inducted its first class of sixteen students in the fall of…