Institute Focus
The New Directors Institute (NDI) is designed to help beginning honors directors and deans. The institute will cover key topics of concern, spanning all aspects of honors programming at four-year as well as two-year institutions. The facilitators
provide attendees with sets of skills and understanding required of new directors and deans. The participants will leave with a new network of honors colleagues as well as an understanding of key honors resources and organizations at the national
and regional levels.
This immersive honors experience will prepare you to be successful in your new position as an honors administrator. Sessions include individual consultation as time permits.
Learning Outcomes
Participants will:
- Articulate points of alignment between their honors program/college mission, vision and values with their broader institutional contexts;
- Identify challenges and develop strategies regarding administrative responsibilities, including budgeting, program management, and student and faculty recruitment;
- Assess their programs’/colleges’ existing curricular and co-curricular models and formulate plans to strengthening offerings;
- Create an action plan for continued work;
- Acquire knowledge of and access to vital resources.
Audience
New directors and deans of honors programs and honors colleges
Registration Information
Institute Size: 35 participants
NCHC Member Price: $650; Non-Member Price: $1,300
Deadline to Register: June 13, 2025
Double Up and Save $100!
Register first for NDI, and save $100 on iSpark registration! Registrants for the New Directors Institute (July 20-23) will receive a code to save $100 on their registration for iSpark (Institute for Strategic Planning, Assessment, and Reviewer
Knowledge), July 24-26.
Venue & Accommodations
The New Directors Institute will be hosted in Chicago, Illinois at the
Aloft Chicago Mag Mile
243 East Ontario Street | Chicago, IL 60611
Guest Room Rate: $177 per room per night (exclusive of applicable state and local taxes - currently 17.4%).
To make your reservation, call Marriott reservations at (312) 429-6600 and indicate that you are with the NCHC Summer Institutes or use the button below.
Reserve a Room
Facilitators
Becky Bott-Knutson is Dean of the Van D. and Barbara B. Fishback Honors College at South Dakota State University. Bott-Knutson previously served as Chair of the National Collegiate Honors Council's Professional Development Committee and currently
serves as Co-Chair of the Student Engagement Committee for the Council on Honors Education. She provides leadership for a federally funded collaborative dedicated to innovating honors pedagogies through The Justice Challenge program. Bott-Knutson
co-led the NCHC summer institute on (fund)Raising Honors in 2022 and 2024 and has published 23 articles and monograph chapters on Honors education since 2018.
Louis Keiner is a Professor of Physics and Physical Oceanography and, for the last six years, Associate Dean and Director of Honors at the HTC Honors College at Coastal Carolina University. He serves on the NCHC Professional Development Committee,
is an approved NCHC External Reviewer, and has contributed to the NCHC monograph series. Prior to joining the HTC Honors College in a leadership role, he taught honors courses at CCU for fifteen years, and served for six as the Director of
the Faculty Development Center.
Steven Edwards is Director of the Honors Program and Meritorious Professor of Music at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is a Fellow of the National Collegiate Honors Council, chairs the NCHC Arts and Creativity Committee, and has served as Coordinator of Arts Master Classes for NCHC national conferences for the past eight years.
Edwards was a member of the 2020 cohort of the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL) Global, a partnership between the Online Learning Consortium and the Southern African Regional Universities Association. He earned an Executive Graduate Certificate from the Global Leaders Institute in August, 2022. He is listed on the Fulbright Specialist Program Roster and completed a project with Fundación Nacional Batuta in Bogota, Colombia in March, 2023 and has an upcoming project with Querido Arte in Guatemala in September, 2025. He serves on the Fulbright Alumni Advisory Group for Community College Faculty and Staff.
Marcella McCoy-Deh is Director of the Philadelphia University Honors Institute and Associate Professor of American Studies at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She serves on the NCHC Board of Directors, is a registered NCHC Program Reviewer, and her program participates as one of the inaugural Nobel + NCHC Partners in Peace.
Over the course of her 23 years as honors director, Marcella has served as a board member of the Northeast Regional Honors Council, a regular presenter at NCHC annual conferences and has published in an NCHC Monograph. Marcella serves as her campus Fulbright Program Advisor and is a Fulbright Scholar alumna (Ghana 2019-2020). Prior to joining Thomas Jefferson University, Marcella served as Assistant Honors Director and Honors faculty member, respectively, at Morgan State University and Hampton University.
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