SACS Reaffirmation
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Assessment : 2007 - 2008 : Educational Support :
Honors Program
5 Goals 5 Objectives 6 Indicators 6 Criteria 2 Findings 2 Actions
GOAL: Attracting And Retaining Excellent Students
| Objective | Enhance The Honors Experience For Select Honors Students | |
| The honors program should develop specific supports that would enhance the honors experience for the top students in the program. Associated Goals: Attracting And Retaining Excellent Students |
| Indicator | New Support And Recognition For Top Students  The Honors Program will seek to provide specific support, monetary and otherwise, for students identified as among the top in the program. |
| Criteria | Financial Support The top 5% to 10% of Honors students should receive recognition and support beyond that of the other honors students. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Enhance The Overall Honors Educational Experience
| Objective | Provide Academic Opportunities Beyond Coursework | |
| In addition to maintaining the honors curriculum, the program should provide specific support for scholarly and academic activities beyond those available in the regular honors curriculum. Associated Goals: Enhance The Overall Honors Educational Experience |
| Indicator | Provide Support For Undergraduate Research For Honors Students In addition to maintaining the honors curriculum, the program should provide specific support for undergraduate research by honors students. |
| Criteria | Program Support The Honors Program will develop specific programs to support undergraduate research |
| Finding | The 2008 Undergraduate Research Symposium In April of 2008, the Honors Program sponsored the first Undergraduate Research Symposium. The program was modelled after research symposiums in the disciplines. The expectation was that the symposium would attract enough student participants, faculty moderators, and audience participants to justify a second symposium in 2009. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Contiuation with revisions The 2008 Undergraduate Research Symposium was a success. It was well organized and reasonably well attended. Revisions need to be made in how the symposium is promoted and explained. The program will review and assess the 2008 program with the objective of making it an annual event |
GOAL: Growing Program Resources
| Objective | External Funding Sources For Student Scholarships | |
| Investigate possibilities of raising external support for student scholarships and program contingencies. Associated Goals: Growing Program Resources |
| Indicator | Enhancing Scholarship Support For Honors Students The Honors Program will consider organizing a fundraising campaign that will supplement the scholarship support available through existing sources. |
| Criteria | External Fundraising Initiative The Honors Program should develop fundraising initiatives with the objective of bringing in at least $10,000 of external support in 2007-08. |
| Finding | The “Let’s Talk” Fundraising Event Planning began in the fall for a spring gala fundraising event. The March 2008 “Let’s Talk” gala raised $55,000 for student scholarships and program support. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | "Let's Talk" 2009 The event will be continued in 2009. The organizing committee will hold its first meeting in August 2008, and the event is set for March 2009. The committee performed a post- assessment of the 2008 event and will use the results to refine and improve the 2009 event. |
GOAL: Improved Recruitment And Retention
| Objective | Improved On-going Advising And Contact | |
| The Honors Program seeks to improve in both contact hours and quality of contact the advice and support that in-program students receive. Associated Goals: Improved Recruitment And Retention |
| Indicator | Honors Contracts Completed Currently, too few honors course contracts are completed. This directly affects honors graduation requirements. |
| Criteria | Direct monitoring of honors contracts Through a program on direct contact between the honors program, students, and instructors the current rate of contract completion (62%) should be improved by at least 10%. |
| Indicator | Increased Retention And Graduation Rates Stronger in-program advising should result in higher rates of students who complete Honors requirements and not just graduate but graduate with honors. |
| Criteria | Increase Graduation-with-Honors rate In the past three years, about as many honors students failed to complete honors requirements as did. For May 2006, 19 completed the requirements and 23 did not. With improved communications and advising, we should raise the completion rate by at least 10 percent. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.
GOAL: Maintain A Balanced, Comprehensive Honors Academic Program
| Objective | Assessment Of Course Offerings | |
| The Honors Program should regularly evaluate the range and sufficiency of honors courses. Associated Goals: Maintain A Balanced, Comprehensive Honors Academic Program |
| Indicator | Determining Student Satisfaction With Current Honors Course Offerings The Honors Program will poll Honors students to determine is there is significant dissatisfaction with current offerings and if there are suggestions for additions. |
| Criteria | Expanding Honors Course Offerings Based on student response, the Honors Program should seek to add two upper-division and two lower division courses in selected majors and a second humanities seminar. |
Actions for Objective:
This objective has no actions associated with it.