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Proposed honors program set for vote

By Stacy Pendleton

Last spring a committee convened, headed by chairperson Patricia Falk of Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, consisting of John Donoghue, engineering; Bill Bowen and Nancy Meyer-Emerick, urban affairs; Sarah Matthews, sociology; Barbara Margolius, math; Ed Thomas and Chia-Shin Chung, business; John Jeziorowski, health sciences; and Sheldon Gelman, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Marie Zeglen, vice provost of planning assessment and resourse management, acted as an ex-officio member.

The committee met all last fall and drafted a proposal for the honors program and reported back to faculty senate. The proposal was sent to the University Curriculum Committee and the Admissions and Academic Standards Committee for comment.

If the honors program is approved, eligible students may apply for admission at two points in their academic careers, as entering first-year students or as juniors (with at least 60 credit hours of undergraduate courses).

Eligible students will include entering first-year students with no previous college experience, tran-sfer students with junior-level standing from either a two- or four-year acad-emic institution, and continuing CSU students with junior-level standing who were not initially admitted to the Honors Program but who excelled academically while atten-ding CSU.

Entering first-year students who wish to be admitted to the honors program must have a score of 27 or above on the ACT or a score of 1220 or above on the SAT and must have graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school class. Applicants may also be required to write an essay or provide letters of recommendation. Initially, CSU will admit up to 50 first-year students into the honors program each year, according to the proposal.

Junior-level students wishing to be admitted into the honors program will need 60 hours of completed undergraduate course work, a score of 27 or above on the ACT or a score of 1220 on the SAT and an undergraduate G.P.A. of 3.5 or higher. Initially, CSU will admit up to 25 junior-level students into the honors program each year, according to the proposal.

All students admitted into the honors program will be required to maintain a minimum G.P.A. of 3.5 or higher. If a student’s G.P.A. falls below a 3.5, he or she will have one semester to raise it. If the student fails to raise his or her G.P.A., he or she will not be eligible to continue in the honors program. No additional grace period will be allowed for students who’s G.P.A. falls below 3.5 for a second semester. Students whose participation in the honors program has been terminated will not be eligible to reapply, as outlined in the proposal.

Students that successfully complete the honors program will have that indicated on their official transcript and receive special recognition at commencement.

There will be a core of new courses designed especially for incoming first-year students. All first-year honors students will be required to take at least 20 credit hours of lower-division honors courses.

Lower-division students will also be required to take a universal one-credit honors course per semester. This course will consist of attendance at campus events and events throughout the community.

As soon as honors students begin their junior year and have declared a major, their coursework will be more flexible. The upper-division honors program is customized to each student’s major and individual goals. Each student, with the help of a departmental liaison and a faculty mentor, will be responsible for choosing courses that meet the requirement of the student’s major and personal goals.

Upper-level honor students will also be required to enroll in the universal one-credit honors course. Falk said this will give the students a chance to interact with each other through cultural events.

Falk said the purpose of the honors program is to entice students with high G.P.A.’s to come to CSU and stay here until they finish their undergraduate education. According to research conducted for the proposal, a high percentage of academically successful students leave CSU prior to graduation. For example, in the fall of 2000, nine students were admitted to CSU in the highest ACT range (33-36); all nine students left CSU within a year. Sixty-two students were admitted to CSU with an ACT score of between 28 and 32, and 61 percent left within a year.

The committee conducted focus groups on an honors program at CSU to receive feedback from students about such a program. Regarding an honors program at CSU one student said, “You want to learn in class, in an environment where you can learn from other students and they can learn from you.” Another student said, “It looks so much better on your resume, too. In an honors program, high standards are just a given.” Students who participated in the focus groups rated scho-larships as the single most attractive feature of an honors program. Work experience in the major was second.

A major fundraising effort will be required to get the honors program off the ground. The first priority would be for student scholarships, a key component to attracting and keeping academically successful students. According to the proposal, when the honors program is in full swing in its fourth year of operation, it should be able to support 200 to 250 students with an average scholarship of $10,000 per year.

In its fourth year of operation, it will cost an estimated $370,000 to operate the honors program.

The operating budget includes funds for a half-time program director, a full-time administrative assistant, space renovations and outfitting, travel and conference expenses, honoraria for colloquia, course replacement costs for faculty members who teach honors courses, course development stipends for faculty, support for upper-division programs within academic departments and other incidental expenses, according to the proposal.

As stated in the mission statement of the proposal, “The culminating goal of the Cleveland State University Honors Program is to raise the reputation and stature of the university within the Cleveland metropolitan area, in Northeastern Ohio and in the educational community at large.”

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