In high school, there are no shortage of opportunities for students to “get ahead.” Between Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate, dual enrollment and attending community college first, an increasing number of students are arriving at the University of Idaho with college credits.
The University Honors Program (UHP) has felt this shift in the university population. The group of about 516 students participate in community service and attend classes together, and some live together in the on-campus housing groups.
David Black | Argonaut
Twenty of the 29 classes offered during this school year were aimed to help students complete their General Education requirements, which these high-achieving students often have already completed upon enrollment. Yet when a student trying to maintain membership does not need to take these lower division classes, they are left with few options, and some of those options are only allowed a certain number of times.
For sophomore Arianna Georgallis, it made sense to join UHP after participating in an honors society in high school. But she has struggled to maintain her membership this year.
“There”s very few more, like, liberal arts-based classes,” Georgallis said. “A lot of are things I”m not going to take and it”s hard for me to stay in the Honors Program when they don”t have a wide variety of classes.”
She is a philosophy major with business and political science minors. Her complicated degree plan has made it difficult to fit in extra classes for UHP.
Georgallis said the only classes that fit into her major and minors are Political Science 101 and Philosophy 103. To earn the required honors credits for this school year, she had to take a class outside of her major – fine once or twice, but doing so repeatedly could throw her off her four-year plan.
“I took one, History of Rock n” Roll,” she said. “I loved the class – it just wasn”t related to my major.”
Georgallis is not a transfer student, but her degree and multiple minors cover many of the General Education classes she would have had to take. The 100 and 200-level humanities and social science courses will be filled by classes for her major and are not offered as honors courses.
UI Honors Program director Alton Campbell acknowledged that the program does not fit everyone.
“We just have focused on the freshmen (and) sophomore courses,” he said. “It fits the needs we are trying to address that more students are coming in with general ed requirements.”
General Education requirements are set by the university, and students are required to earn a minimum of 36 credits. A majority of the classes that are required by GE fit into most degree programs.
For example, Philosophy 103 counts as a Humanities course and a prerequisite to upper division philosophy courses. Chemistry 111 counts as a lab science course as well as a degree requirement for most science majors. The credits can be completed alongside the requirements for a degree. Both are offered as honors courses.
“A lot of students fulfill a lot of their honors requirements at the freshman and sophomore level then become active members and don”t need to take many courses to keep their membership,” Campbell said. “These classes work whether you”re in business, or College of Natural Resources or engineering.”
He said he believes that if students plan correctly, they can take honors courses.
“Students will say, “Oh, I wish there were some upper level honors business courses, there”s really nothing for me,”” Campbell said. “There”s just not enough critical mass of people to teach one of those.”
This focus on one set of requirements is part of having a small program. Campbell said that at larger schools, honors can be earned through a student”s major as well as a university-wide program.
“You can graduate with honors in your major,” he said. “So, I think, they offer honors courses. They”re graduating with a major and if they want to do the university program this is a bit of an add-on.”
Departments on campus are not compensated for the extra man-hours devoted to special honors sections.
Sophomore Shaundra Herrud said she has experienced the same frustration as Georgallis.
Herrud is an operations management and human resources major with minors in psychology and statistics. The only class that fit her plan was Psychology 101.
She came in with about 30 credits from Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment programs in high school.
“If you”ve already taken all those credits, there”s no way to get (membership or honors awards),
Herrud said. “It puts you at a disadvantage. The hard work I did in high school, it just means I have to take not useful classes.”
To maintain her UHP membership, Herrud took World Art and Culture and Western Literature.
“It was really interesting and I really liked the discussion,” she said. “But again, absolutely no help towards my degree whatsoever.”
Three options
Campbell said there are three options for students arriving with college credit.
The Honors Contract allows students to work closely with a professor in a non-honors course to receive honors credit with extra work. Often the student will do a research project and be held to a higher standard on day-to-day class assignments.
The contract rules were changed to make it easier for students to use. Campbell said he believes this will lead more students to pursue a contract, though he admits that it does not work for every class.
“When they”ve got a class of 200 students and someone comes in and asks to do a contract it”s kind of an overload,” Campbell said. “Some will do it, some would prefer not to. That has been a rare case.”
Georgallis said she was ignored when she asked a professor to complete a contract.
“Teachers aren”t willing to do the contract thing just for one student,” she said.
The second option available to honors students is an elective honors thesis that can be completed for four to six credits.
“So students could do research in their field of study and sign up for probably four to six honors credits so they could get upper division credits, credits towards their degree program and complete honors courses,” Campbell said.
The thesis is not limited to research. According to Campbell, the thesis could take other forms, like an art project for a studio art major. Students could earn an additional credit by taking a one-credit class designed to be an introduction to conducting research.
The last option is for students to find an honors course that fits their schedule and hopefully, their degree. UHP offered 9 upper-division courses this year.
But the fact remains that some students have limited options, Campbell said.
“If they came in with almost all of their gen-ed fulfilled, most are going to take a science course most are going to have to take an English course,” Campbell said. “They can take an honors thesis and they can convert a course. Sometimes you have to be a little more proactive to do that.”
However, when it comes to receiving awards and maintaining membership, students can only use a contract and research for up to nine credits toward membership, scholarship renewal, registration privileges and the Honors Core Award, according to the UHP website. Up to 12 credits can be applied to the Honors Certificate – the highest award given by the UHP.
A transfer student would need to complete seven three-credit courses or four credits of research and five three-credit courses to complete a UHP Core Award, the lowest award given that requires 19 credits. A UHP Certificate requires 27 credits.
A national problem
This problem does not exist solely at UI, and Campbell said concerns about transfer students trace to the national level.
“At the (National Collegiate Honors Council) meeting in November, there were several sections (about), “How are we going to address this?”” Campbell said.
At the convention, Campbell said he was able to learn about one system that is used by several universities.
University of Florida and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have transitioned to a points-based system for their honors programs. There are Academic and Enrichment points, where members have to earn a certain number of points in each category to graduate with honors. For example, students can perform in a recital, hold an office on campus, participate in a 100-hour internship or take a 500-level course.
Campbell says the difficulty is finding how many points to attach to each activity. Holding an office in ASUI would be more of a time commitment than being the treasurer of UI Trombone Club.
“To me the challenge is how do we get people to participate in it all four years,” Campbell said. “Keep them participating and keep them doing the things that are good for them, doing the things that they want to do and like to do.”
The point system allows students of all disciplines a way to earn points within their field and opportunities to broaden their horizons through other departments.
Currently, the Honors Program Committee is brainstorming what the UHP can do to better accommodate students. Campbell said they are considering a point-based system as well as other options.
“The honors program welcomes the participation of transfer students,” Campbell said. “A new curriculum will likely provide additional options to transfer students. I just don”t know, it”s a hard thing.”
By the numbers
10,474
Students at the UI Moscow campus
8,834
Full-time students
317
Admitted students for UHP fall 2016
17
UHP transfer students admitted
20
Lower division UHP classes
9
Upper division UHP classes
150
Freshman in UHP
during fall 2015
Tess Fox can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @tesstakesphotos