Calendar of Events
|
February 20
Conference Proposals Due
February 26 - March 1
Winter Board of Directors Meeting & Committee Chair Retreat
February 27
DIH Panelists Due
February 27
Partners in the Parks - Joshua Tree Experience Registration Due
March 1
Deadline for JNCHC Submissions
April 17
Student Service Day
June 1
New Directors Summer Camp Registration Due
|
|
Welcome 2009 Committee Chairs & Co-Chairs
|
|
|
|
|
Call for '09 Conference Proposals
Honors in the Global City
If you have
not submitted your proposal for the NCHC 2009 Annual Conference, time is
running short. Proposals are due February 20 at 5:00 p.m. Central Standard
Time. Proposals received
after February 20 at 5:00 p.m. Central Standard Time will not be accepted. Submit your proposals now, before the last-minute crunch.
The proposal selection committee will be meeting in mid-March, and we look
forward to your submissions. Take a moment now, confer with colleagues and
students in your program or college, contact honors folks at other institutions
to design collaborative sessions, and send your proposals right away. Our DC
conference will be genuinely capital!
Sessions include:
Please note:
· Proposals
may be submitted in only one category.
· The
same proposal may not be submitted in multiple categories.
· The
same proposal may not be submitted by different main
presenters.
· Duplicate
submissions will be disallowed.
· Participants
are limited to two presentations, excluding
pre-conference BIH and DIH
sessions.
General questions
should be directed to nchc@unlserve.unl.edu or
402-472-9150. |
Final Reminder
2009 Membership Renewal
 If
you have not renewed your NCHC membership
for 2009, your membership has lapsed.
The NCHC Members Only pages will soon be active, which means that the
NCHC discussion forum, job postings, and the NCHC member handbook will
be available only to NCHC members.
You may renew your membership
online or if your institution
requires them, you may print your own invoice and W-9 directly from the website. You may pay by credit card,
check or purchase order.
If you have any questions, please call or email the NCHC office, 402-472-9150 and we
will be happy to help you.
Thank you for renewing your membership. The NCHC office is available to assist
you Monday-Friday, 7:00 am to 5:00 pm CST.
|
President's Column
Dear Colleagues,
Your 2009 NCHC Conference Planning Committee has been
planning and working to present our membership with another fantastic annual
conference. We hope that you have been preparing your proposals for
presentations for the conference that will be held on October 28 - November 1,
2009. The proposal deadline for submission is in just a few days:
February 20, 5pm, Central time. As we have for the last several
years, NCHC contracts with an outside firm for your
submissions. Please understand that the system will not accept any
proposals submitted after 5pm Central time on February 20, 2009.
Two other February activities will be your Committee
Chairs Retreat and your Board of Directors meeting. Your committee
co-chairs are meeting in Kansas City on February 27. We will be continuing our
work in strategic planning. We encourage you to contact your chair
person(s) should you have any recommendations before they attend the
Retreat. Your Board of Directors will be meeting that weekend for
our Winter Board Meeting. Again, we encourage your
input. Elsewhere in this eletter, you will find the list of your Board of
Directors and committee chairs.
|
Developing in Honors '09
Call for Panelists
 Thanks
to all of you who submitted possible topics for the annual "Developing in
Honors" (DIH) Workshop at the 2009 NCHC conference in Washington DC!
Now it is time to ask our colleagues to volunteer to share your expertise with
other honors professionals at this signature NCHC workshop for experienced
honors administrators, faculty, and professional staff (defined as having at
least one year's experience in one's current honors position by the time of the
2009 conference).
DIH
panelists make very brief (5 minutes maximum) initial comments, and the
remainder of the session is for interaction with the audience.
DIH sessions should generate conversations among colleagues and not be formal paper presentations.
We hope that we can have a mixture of types of institutions represented
on almost all of the panels, and we plan to make the panels a bit
smaller than past DIH workshops to allow more time for audience
interaction. No presenter may be a member of more than one of the
morning DIH session panels.
We will have several afternoon DIH Extended Discussion Sessions in
addition to the 17 morning sessions (the General Opening Session and
two rounds of eight breakout sessions). Most of the afternoon
sessions are "constituency" sessions organized by NCHC committees
(Small Colleges, Large Universities, Two-year Institutions, etc.), and
we will provide additional information a bit later.
To volunteer, please send reply e-mail to Ricki Shine at Clemson University rshine@clemson.edu in which you indicate:
- Your Name
- Your Institution
- Your Honors Position
- Your Institution Type (Small College, Large University, Mid-Size Institution, Two-year Institution)
- Approximate Number of Honors Students at Your Institution
- Your E-mail Address
- Your Office Telephone Number
- DIH Session Number(s)/Topic(s) to which you can contribute as a
panel member (See list below, and feel free to provide several options
TO AVOID A REPEAT OF THE PROBLEMS WE ENCOUNTERED WITH
MULTIPLE DIH PANELIST CANCELLATIONS FOR THE 2008 NCHC CONFERENCE, PLEASE DO
NOT VOLUNTEER FOR A 2009 DIH PANEL UNLESS YOU ARE ESSENTIALLY CERTAIN THAT YOU
WILL BE ABLE TO ATTEND THE NCHC CONFERENCE IN WASHINGTON AND PARTICIPATE IN DIH
ON THURSDAY MORNING.
Please respond by Friday, February 27, if at all possible! We
would like to be able to have the panels organized by mid-March.
Thanks!
Jessica Roark, Oklahoma State University
Ricki Shine, Clemson University
Bob Spurrier, Oklahoma State University
2009 DIH Co-chairs
-----
|
2009 DIH PANEL TOPICS
Opening
Panel: Generations X, Y, and Z? - -
Honors Advising in the 21st Century
- Protecting our Programs from External Demands
- Admitting Qualified Honors Students: What do we value in Honors
Admissions Decisions?
- Many Eggs in the
Honors Basket: Exploring the many student services offered through Honors
- The Characteristics
of a Fully Developed Honors Director/Dean
- Assessment and
Honors: Can We Measure What Honors Does?
- Honors Housing:
Living-Learning Communities
- Honors Ambassadors:
Spreading the Honors Message
- Utilizing Honors
Student Advisory Boards Successfully
- Honors and Math and
Science Courses: Techniques that Work
- Easing the Way: Transition
Models for Community College Transfer Students
- Fundraising for Honors: A Way to Ease
Budgetary Pain?
- Models for Honors
Orientation: Starting off on the Right Foot
- Developing
Interdisciplinary Honors Courses: Breaking Down Disciplinary Walls
- Business and Honors
- Are They Mutually Exclusive?
- Sustaining the
Momentum: Strategies for Retaining Good Students in Honors
- Expanding the Honors
Family: Parent Societies for Honors Programs/Colleges
|
|
Partners in the Parks
2009 Schedule
Southern
Utah University and NCHC, in cooperation with the National Park Service, are
sponsoring a series of outdoor academic adventures again this year. Our
first project is an alternative Spring Break at Joshua Tree National Park in
southern California, (March 16-21, 2009).
Planned activities include camping, field research, photography, climbing the
Kelso Sand Dunes and an overnight backpacking trip in the park's back
country. Temperatures 45-75 degrees F! With falling fuel prices
flights to Las Vegas, our jumping off point, are relatively inexpensive,
$250-$300. We recommend purchasing travel insurance for flights.
Registration deadline is Feb 27, 2009.
2009 PITP Projects include:
Joshua Tree National Park (Mar
16-21)
Zion National Park (May 11-16)
Black Canyon of the Gunnison
(May 17-23)
Grand Canyon-Parashant National
Monument (May 25-30)
Bryce Canyon National Park (June
1-6)
Acadia National Park (Aug 8-14)
STUDENT STIPENDS
In cooperation with the NPS, we are offering a limited number of Student Travel
Stipends to assist financially challenged students to attend PITP
projects. We hope that honors administrators will promote the
stipend awards and encourage qualified candidates to apply for assistance to
attend a PITP project this year.
More information about the 2009 projects and the Student Travel Stipends can be
found at our Web site:
http://www.partnersintheparks.org
PITP BULLETIN
We are using a new Web presence to advertise our projects and keep the passion
and interest flowing. The PITP Bulletin is at:
http://archive.li.suu.edu/pitpbulletin
This site will be updated on a regular basis to let interested students and
programs know what's happening as we develop our 2009 projects. We hope
these ongoing announcements will maintain interest and excitement about the
coming year.
~ Matt Nickerson
|
PBS & Partners in the Parks
A PBS Masterpiece Theatre representative
has contacted our Executive Director in anticipation of methods for NCHC to
assist in promoting PBS's new The
Masterpiece Guide to Teaching Charles Dickens that is posted on the PBS website.
As we all appreciate,
Masterpiece Theatre is well known for bringing quality programs to television.
In addition to bringing the words of Dickens to life, the Masterpiece Classic
2009 series provides engaging and innovative study materials for The Tales of
Charles Dickens. Please see below the schedule for the PBS adaptations of
four of Dickens' novels:
Oliver Twist: February 22
David Copperfield: March 15 and 22
Little Dorrit: March 29 and April
26
The Old Curiosity Shop: May 3
In addition to this season's series, PBS plans for fall 2009 to air a
series on our national parks that will be narrated by Ken Burns. The timing is
quite significant for NCHC. As an Ad Hoc Committee, Partners in the Parks
designed, developed, and implemented with tremendous success numerous Partners
in the Parks excursions. Your Board of Directors approved Partners in the
Parks to be one of our standing committees. Partners in the Parks was
recognized by the National Parks Service (NPS) as an official 2008 Centennial
Challenge Project. The Centennial Initiative is a ten-year celebration leading
up to the 100th birthday of the NPS in 2016. I encourage you to go to the
Partners in the Parks website http://www.partnersintheparks.org.
PBS's new series on the
national parks will obviously entice people into the parks. The combination of
that series with our poor economy may mean that more people will decide that
our National Parks are the best venues for vacations. Travel to our National
Parks will be economical venues for exploring not only the fauna and flora of
our great nation but also some of our most important historical sites. Please
encourage your students to check out Partners in the Parks website so that they
can view the upcoming excursions into the national parks. |
Call for Papers
Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC)
 The next issue of JNCHC (deadline:
March 1, 2009) invites research essays on any topic of interest to the
honors community.
The issue will also include a Forum focused on the theme
"Social Class and Honors." We invite essays of roughly a
thousand words that consider this theme in the context of your campus and/or a
national context.
The lead essay in the Forum is entitled "Honors is Elitist, and What's Wrong with That?", by the
ever-provocative Norm Weiner of the University of New York at Oswego. Contributions
to the Forum may respond to this essay or take an independent approach.
Questions to consider might include: Do honors programs
reflect the diversity in social class of their home institutions? Should
they? Do honors programs reflect America's social hierarchy?
Should they? Is a focus on issues of social class important in the honors
classroom and curriculum? Are honors programs designed to provide upward
mobility, and, if so, is that a worthy goal? Is diversity in social class
a benefit to honors, and should it be a goal in admissions? Do honors
admissions criteria implicitly discriminate against lower- or working-class
students? How does the relationship between social class and race affect
honors programs? How do differences in social class affect the extracurricular
life, residential living, or service components of honors programs? Do
scholarship programs in honors exacerbate or ameliorate differences in social
class? Do study abroad programs increase discrimination based on social
class? How do service learning programs help and/or hinder awareness of
class issues?
All submissions to JNCHC should be forwarded via
email attachment (unless another mode of submission is approved in advance) to
Ada Long at adalong@uab.edu. For inquiries
about the journal, you may also contact Ada Long at 850-927-3776.
|
Featured Committee
Honors Advising & Major Scholarship Preparation
The Honors
Advising and Major Scholarship Preparation Committee members represent the
diverse roles undertaken by honors administrators at their respective
institutions. Members of the committee serve as honors advisors, directors of
fellowships and undergraduate research, or both.
At the 2008 Conference in San Antonio, the committee organized a symposium,
opening with a general discussion on the relationship between academic advising
and scholarship advising. The symposium then broke into two tracks, each tailored
to specific advising needs. The first addressed issues in honors advising such
as taking the students beyond the curriculum and assessment of advising models.
The second focused on methods of acquiring strong letters of recommendation and
guiding the student through the personal statement process. One of the
committee members, Jodi Devine, followed up the symposium by collecting and
distributing a compilation of advising resources from Abilene Christian
University, Bowling Green State University, Oklahoma State University, Sinclair
Community College, and Joliet Junior College. The committee hopes to make these
materials available to a broader audience in the near future.
The committee meeting that followed saw lively discussion from committee members
and new attendees, and brainstorming began regarding current "hot topics" in
advising and proposal ideas for the 2009 NCHC Conference in Washington DC.
Topics under consideration are models of honors advising, retention strategies,
the role of the advisor in student orientation, the general profile for
successful scholarship students, and methods for building relationships quickly
(especially for fellowship advisors). We are looking forward to submitting a
proposal for a conference session sponsored by our committee that will generate
discussion and provide resources for honors advisors and scholarship advisors
alike.
Co-chairs for the committee are Laura Damuth, Director of Undergraduate
Research and Fellowship Advising at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (ldamuth@unlnotes.unl.edu), and
Jessica Roark of Oklahoma State University (jessica.roark@okstate.edu).
Please feel free to contact either of us with questions or comments.
~Jessica Roark
|
| NCHC Student Service Day
The National Collegiate Honors Council announces
Student Service Day
Friday, April 17, 2009
"A lot of people are waiting for Martin Luther King or
Mahatma Gandhi to come back -- but they are gone. We are it. It is up to us. It
is up to you."
~Marian Wright Edelman
Don't miss out! Get your Honors program involved this spring.
Students from Wor-Wic
Community College in Salisbury, Maryland at the Salisbury Zoo's annual Night of the Living Zoo
during the NCHC Student Service Day in fall 2008. Students helped to provide treats for over
5,000 local children and their families and raised $30,000 to benefit the
Zoo's Education and Conservation programs
Service
Ideas Include:
-
Yard clean-up for elderly or disabled
- Volunteer at local libraries, thrift
stores, or soup kitchens
- Host a party for at-risk youth
- Elementary or middle school outreach
We
want to know what you've done for your community. Send your service plans,
reports, and photos to nchc@unlserve.unl.edu
|
NCHC Summer Camp
for New Directors
The Professional
Development Committee is pleased to host a Summer Camp for new honors directors
and deans at Iowa State University, July 9-11, 2009. Participants will have the
opportunity to take part in two full days of nuts-and-bolts sessions where they
will be immersed in an honors experience that will prepare them for success in
their new positions as honors administrators.
Participants will:
-
Learn strategies for developing annual budgets and
curricula and address staffing and administrative issues unique to their individual
programs.
- Engage in one-on-one sessions with experienced honors
administrators.
- Work in small groups to develop short and long-term
strategies and goals.
- Begin to identify key resources and allies on their own
campus.
- Learn the 'tricks of the trade' about how to recruit honors
faculty and students.
The registration fee for this institute is $500 and the deadline to register is June 1, 2009.
Participants may register
and pay by credit card online or submit their registration by mail to
the national office. Full details are available in the
online brochure.
Questions? Contact Laurie Fiegel at 515-294-4292.
|
|
|
|
2009 Board of Directors
President
Lydia Lyons, Hillsborough Community College
President-Elect
John Zubizarreta, Columbia College-South Carolina
Immediate Past President
Hallie Savage, Clarion University of Pennsylvania
Vice President
Bonnie Irwin, Eastern Illinois University
Secretary
Bob Spurrier, Oklahoma State University
Treasurer
Rolland W. Pack, Freed-Hardeman University
Ginny Atkinson, Central Arizona College
*Amanda Bowman, Columbia College-South Carolina
Bernice Braid, Long Island University-Brooklyn
Ellen Buckner, University of Alabama-Birmingham
Elizabeth Callahan, Saint Louis University
*Sarah Fann, University of North Carolina-Wilmington
Annmarie Guzy, University of South Alabama
Greg Lanier, University of West Florida
Kathy Lyon, Winthrop University
Jay Mandt, Wichita State University
*Roxanne Moralez, Texas State University-San Marcos
Rosalie Otero, University of New Mexico
Doug Peterson, University of South Dakota
Jim Ruebel, Ball State University
*Ann Schnitzenbaumer, Ball State University
Rick Scott, University of Central Arkansas
*Pratik Talati, University of Alabama-Birmingham
*Nathan Torno, Texas A & M University
*Student Member
NCHC Staff
Cynthia M. Hill, Executive Director 402-472-9155
Carolee Martin Brink 402-472-9150
Judy Smith 402-472-9150
Trish Souliere 402-472-9172
Betty Talley 402-472-9151 |
|
|
