SACS Reaffirmation
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Assessment : 2006 - 2007 : Educational Support :
Honors Program
3 Goals 3 Objectives 4 Indicators 4 Criteria 4 Findings 4 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. |
| Finding | Selection and Support of Honors Ambassadors In 2006-07 16 Honors Ambassadors (5% of honors students)were selected through an interview process. The new Ambassadors received travel support to honors conferences and a $250.00 per-semester stipend for the services they perform. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Continuation of Current Program The Honors Ambassadors program will be continued (not expanded) in 2007. The program will seek to enhance their travel opportunities and hopes to provide other perquisites, such as Ambassador blazers and special recognition on the Honors website and at Honors events. |
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%. |
| Finding | Elevated honors contract completion rates After the implementation of a proactive honors contract monitoring program, with direct involvement from the honors director, the completion rate for F06 rose to 85.54%. |
| 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. |
| Finding | Substantial rise in S07 completion rates. The Honors Program completion rate for S06 was 45.2%. In S07, it was 83%. Not all of this can be ascribed to program retention efforts, but much of it can. |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Continuation of in-program advising effort The in-program enhanced advising initiative is part of a comprehensive effort to improve contact, communication, and academic advising with current students. The program will continue to be assessed and adjusted as needed. |
| Action | Enhanced program of course contract monitoring This program directly influenced the completion of course contracts, which has a directly positive effect on program retention. We will continue contract monitoring in 2007-08 but with increased attention to the quality of the contract experience. |
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. |
| Finding | Addition of two Honors courses The Honors Program succeeded in adding one upper-division course in Criminal Justice (CJ482H) and one lower-division course in Economics (ECO233H). The program was unable to add an upper-division Biology or a lower-division course in any other area. In addition, we lost two lower-division courses in History. In Spring 07, we added a second rotation of HON 475 (American Cultures). |
Actions for Objective:
| Action | Continuing efforts to expand offerings The Honors Program will seek to expand its offerings in upper-division majors. Target majors include Biology, English, and Economics. |