Our History of Growth, Innovation, and Committment

The National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) has a rich heritage within the honors education community.

Since its inception in 1965, NCHC has provided support for the needs, goals, and advancement of honors education. For nearly forty years, NCHC was entirely volunteer-led and managed before estabilishing a national office and professional staff in 2005 to help support the growing needs of the organization and professionalize its services. Today, NCHC serves as both support and a place where collaboration and community can take place between honors programs across the United States and beyond.

NCHC History at a Glance

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Early History and Predecessor Organizations

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1922 - Introduction of Honors Education in the U.S.

Frank Aydelotte introduced the honors education model from Oxford to Swarthmore College, focusing on tutorials, seminars, and a de-emphasis on grades.

1920s through 1930s - Colleges Begin to Experiment with Seminar Formats

In 1937, St. John’s College adopted a similar honors approach to Swarthmore College with ungraded small seminars focusing on the Great Books.

Meanwhile, Columbia and Chicago were experimenting with their own Core Curriculum that employed seminar instruction.

1957 - Establishment of Inter-University Committee on the Superior Student

Joseph W. Cohen hosted a national honors conference in Boulder, leading to the establishment of the Inter-University Committee on the Superior Student (ICSS). This committee defines the “Sixteen Major Features of a Full Honors Program.”

1965 - ICSS is replaced by the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC)

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Formation and Early Years of NCHC

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1966 - NCHC Hosts its First National Meeting

The first national meeting was held at the University of Kansas. A constitution and bylaws were approved with an initial membership of 194 institutional and 303 individual members.

1967 - First President of NCHC is Elected

In 1967, the organization elected its first president, James Robertson of the University of Michigan, who was the founding director of Michigan’s residential college.

1970 - NCHC Publishes its First Newsletter

An important practice initiated by ICSS was the distribution of ideas about honors in publication form, in a newsletter entitled The Superior Student, which ran to almost 4 dozen issues. NCHC took five years to get its own publication up and running, the newsletter Forum for Honors, which first appeared in 1970 and which was joined in 1979 by a companion publication, The National Honors Report.

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Organization Growth and Innovations

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1976 - First Honors Semester and Initiation of City as Text Pedagogy

One of the hallmarks of NCHC and the larger honors education movement has been innovation in approaches to teaching and learning.

For example, 1976 saw the creation of the first Honors Semester, the now long-standing place-based learning exercise in which students and faculty from different institutions gather together to “read” a specific locale as a text. That inaugural event was held in Washington DC to mark the country’s Bicentennial. Students investigated American culture through group exploration and discovery, employing the “City as Text” pedagogy designed by Dr. Bernice Braid, who is still active almost 50 years later in the design of honors semesters by the NCHC Place as Text committee.

1987 - NCHC Files its Articles of Incorporation

1994 - Adoption of the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program”

NCHC further institutionalized the standing of honors education with the 1994 adoption of the “Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors program." Shepherded by longtime LaSalle University Honors Director Jack Grady, the 1994 characteristics caused some consternation among members at the time because of worries that honors education would become standardized and that the document might lead to accrediting of honors programs, a practice that has not come to pass, of course.

2000 - Launch of the Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC)

2004 - NCHC’s Monograph Series Begins

In 2004, NCHC replaced the series Monographs in Honors Education with its own monograph series. To date it has produced over 25 monographs.

2005 - Launch of the Honors in Practice Publication

2005 - NCHC National Office Established

Perhaps the most significant shift in the history of the organization—the creation of a national office and hiring of an Executive Director to oversee the office and staff—began to gain momentum in 1998-99 through the work of a long-range planning committee. After considering various proposals for office locations, the board selected the University of Nebraska, Lincoln as the site of the national headquarters, which opened its doors in 2005.

This move was an attempt to manage the significant growth of NCHC; professionalize some of its activities; and pass some responsibilities that had been the purview of a mostly volunteer group into the hands of paid staff.

With approximately two dozen committees in place today, NCHC still depends very much on the talent, energy, and good will of its hundreds of volunteers; but those efforts are importantly guided by, supported by, and in some cases led by professional staff.

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Ongoing Evolution

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Establishment of Awards and Recognition Programs

The second decade of the 21st century saw the proliferation of a series of recognition programs highlighting the service of committed NCHC members, including the NCHC Fellows program in 2010, the Ron Brandolini Award for Excellence at a Two-Year Institution in 2014, the Sam Schuman Award for Excellence at a Four-Year Institution in 2015, and the Founders Award to recognize the most influential, longest serving NCHC members.

2016 - Establishment of Online Student Research Journal: UReCA

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts

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Just as the academy has wrestled more directly with issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion over the past few decades, NCHC has had to grapple with the legacy of elitism and exclusion that is part of honors education history.

The organization’s DEI work has taken place on multiple fronts: for example, the monograph series has published two important books, Setting the Table for Diversity in 2010 and Occupy Honors Education in 2017; NCHC’s Diversity and Inclusion committee – one of the largest and most engaged committees of the organization – regularly offers extensive programming at our national conference and now also in online workshops. In 2019, the board approved its first Diversity and Inclusion statement.

2023 - NCHC Board Adopts "The Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education"

In 2023, NCHC's board voted to retire the “Basic Characteristics” in favor of the next iteration entitled “The Shared Principles and Practices of Honors Education,” a document that centers diversity, equity, inclusion, and access in honors education.