LINCOLN, NE - The National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) – the oldest and largest membership organization of institutions with honors programs and colleges – has just released a thorough reworking of national standards for honors education, “The Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education.”

First established almost three decades ago as “The Basic Characteristics of Honors Programs,” the updated standards are the result of a year-long examination by a committee of twelve honors program and college leaders from around the country, as well as public forums that compiled the advice and feedback from hundreds of honors practitioners from around the world.

The new guidelines center the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion in honors, along with reaffirming the commitment to student-centered learning, which has been a hallmark of honors education in innovative areas like interdisciplinary learning, place-based learning, and team-teaching for more than a half century.

The NCHC board adopted the “Shared Principles and Practices” unanimously at its most recent board meeting on February 16, 2022. According to Mary Beth Rathe, Executive Director of NCHC, “Honors education has matured significantly over the past thirty years and these new standards reflect those changes.” Honors is a growth industry on many higher ed campuses: for example, while there were roughly two dozen honors colleges in 1994 when the “Basic Characteristics” were first rolled out, there are now approximately 250 honors college in the U.S. and more than 1,000 honors programs.

This maturation in honors education includes not just growth in the number of honors programs and colleges but also changes in how honors has evolved from niche programs that historically have focused on educating a small and select segment of a university population to more expansive, inclusive, and distinctive programs that are open to a wide range of students. The national organization recently chronicled these changes in a 2021 position paper, “Honors Enrollment Management: Toward a Theory and Practice of Inclusion.”

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The National Collegiate Honors Council is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit association that seeks to support and enhance the community of educational institutions, professionals, and students who participate in collegiate honors education around the world. Headquartered on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus, the NCHC provides publications, faculty trainings, an annual professional conference, and networking opportunities to its members, as well as experiential travel programs and scholarships for honors students. More details can be found at www.nchchonors.org.