In This Issue...
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Announcement of NCHC Interim Executive Director
Fellow NCHC members,
I am pleased to share with the NCHC membership that Dr. Laura Damuth agreed to serve as NCHC Interim Executive Director and began December 1, 2022. During my time in Lincoln in October Laura’s name repeatedly came up as I met with university and community leaders in hopes of identifying someone in Lincoln who could take on this role.
Laura served the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL) as both the Director of undergraduate research and as a National Fellowships Advisor for over 25 years. She was the Associate Director of the University Honors Program and was a member of NCHC. She retired last year. Her B.A. from Vassar College was in Music. She earned a Ph.D. in Music History, Literature, and Theory from Columbia University. Desiring to stay connected to students she has been teaching honors courses in the University Honors Program at UNL since 2009, specifically on Music in Film and Music in the American Broadway Musical. We are very fortunate to have Laura join the national office; she has the perspective and skill sets to rebuild the national office and help us continue to move forward.
A national search for an Executive Director is forming with President-elect, Susan Dinan as chair of the search committee. Updates will be provided in the coming months.
More to come,
Christina McIntyre
NCHC President (outgoing)
NCHC Holiday Hours
NCHC Offices will be closed December 23 for the holiday season, reopening on January 3. Wishing all our members a restful and rejuvenating break!
Honors Gives Back: Celebrating 100 Years of Honors
To celebrate 100 Years of Honors Education in the United States, NCHC highlighted a core feature of honors pedagogy: service learning. Service learning programs bring campuses and communities together to share resources, meet real-world needs, and educate students in becoming change agents for the future. This page serves as a collective of service-learning concepts from institutions across the nation, seeking to inspire others as they invest in their own local communities. Thank you to all NCHC members who contributed their stories!
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We ended our year of celebration in a culminating service project at the NCHC22 Annual Conference. Over 100 NCHC students took part in mural painting at Kirkpatrick Elementary School in Ft. Worth, making lasting memories with students and teachers there.
NCHC22: Recap
Thank you to Kristina Pickering for creating this recap video of the NCHC22 Conference event!
View the NCHC22 Photo Album
NCHC22 Archive and Awards
2022 Election Results
2022 Election Results
Thank you to all who voted in the 2022 NCHC Election!
Below are the results of all ballots received for the election of the Vice Presidency, Treasurer, Professional and Student Board of Directors (One-year and Two-year), and the proposal of Changes to Lifetime Professional Membership Dues. Only ballots received as of December 7, 2022 were counted.
The number of voters and weighted votes are detailed for each poll item below. Weighted vote results were as follows:
Vice President – 236 Voters, 275 Weighted Votes:
Darryl Peterkin, Morgan State University
Treasurer – 236 Voters, 277 Weighted Votes:
John Emert, Ball State University
Professional Board of Directors – 250 Voters, 298 Weighted Votes:
Anne Dotter, Johnson County Community College
Fawn-Amber Montoya, James Madison University
Christopher Syrnyk, Oregon Institute of Technology
Student Board of Directors (2 Year Term) – 213 Voters, 253 Weighted Votes:
Shayan Hosseini, University of Nevada-Reno
Jillian Richarz, The University of Tampa
Student Board of Directors (1 Year Term) – 213 Voters, 252 Weighted Votes
Anushree Chauhan, Rowan University
Temera Sinclair, Hillsborough Community College
Change to Lifetime Professional Membership Dues – 245 Voters, 289 Weighted Votes
For: 266 votes
Against: 23 votes
Congratulations and welcome to the new members of the NCHC Board of Directors!
Confirmation letter provided by HBE
Don't forget that 2022 Memberships expire December 31! Invoices are available in your member profile for payment online or by check. Please contact the NCHC Office at nchc@unl.edu if you have any questions about your 2022 membership or accessing your invoice. We can't wait to share what's in store for you in the upcoming year!
Dates and Deadlines
Take note of these upcoming important dates for NCHC members!
| December 22 | NCHC Offices Close |
| December 31 | 2022 Memberships Expire |
| January 1 | HIP Submission Deadline |
| January 3 | NCHC Offices Re-Open |
| January 25 | NCHC Faculty Awards Open |
| January 25 | Portz Interdisciplinary Fellowship Awards Open |
Journal of the EHC
The Journal of the European Honors Council (JEHC) invites submissions for a special issue on Complex Problems in Higher Education Talent Programs: Complete Call Information
Call for JNCHC Submissions
The next issue of JNCHC (deadline: March 1, 2023) invites research essays on any topic of interest to the honors community.
The issue will also include a Forum focused on the theme “Regime Change in Honors,” in which we welcome perspectives, insights, and analytical narratives about the impact that changes in higher administration have on the success or hardships of honors. We invite essays of roughly 1000-2000 words that consider this theme in a practical and/or theoretical context.
The lead essay for the Forum is by John Zubizarreta, Director Emeritus of the honors program that now bears his name at Columbia College, South Carolina. In “A Defiant Response to Regime Change,” Zubizarreta describes the perils and possibilities that new higher administrators can create for honors programs and colleges. He lays out a range of potential advantages, problems, and responses, suggesting ways that honors directors and deans can make the best of peremptory change or, when necessary, resist it. His focus is always on the well-being of the students, the program or college, the staff, the faculty, the honors administrators, the institution, and, above all, the quality and integrity of education. The backbone of Zubizarreta’s essay is his narrative of the prolonged, tortuous, and eventually successful resistance and revitalization of honors he led at Columbia College with the help of a former president and advocate of honors, along with his colleague who succeeded him as director and scores of loyal alumnae and friends.
Contributors to the Forum on “Regime Change in Honors” may, but are not obliged to, respond directly to Zubizarreta’s essay. Questions that Forum contributors might consider include:
- Describe (or imagine) a strategy for responding to a difficult regime change and suggest how other honors administrators might adapt such a strategy.
- Was Zubizarreta’s resistance worth the emotional toll it took on him and his program? Would it have been worthwhile even if it had failed? Why?
- In adopting a strategy of accommodation or resistance, does being a dean rather than a director provide greater or lesser freedom of choice?
- Imagine a situation where a university or college president demands that the honors program establish a minimum SAT score in order to look competitive in a regional or national context, a mandate that would virtually eliminate the racial diversity of the program. How could a director best respond to such an official directive?
- How should an honors director or dean respond to the growing institutional and national trends to scale back or even eliminate academic programs that are deemed unnecessary toward earning a job-ready degree?
- What role can site visits and external program reviews play in resisting threatening administrative plans for honors?
- When is it fair (or not) for an honors director or dean to involve students in a struggle with higher administration?
- Recount a regime change that has presented you with challenges and describe how you responded. In retrospect, how would you evaluate the effectiveness and integrity of your response?
Information about JNCHC—including the editorial policy, submission guidelines, guidelines for abstracts and keywords, and a style sheet—is available on the NCHC website.
Please send all submissions to Ada Long at adalong@uab.edu.
NCHC journals (JNCHC and HIP) and monographs are included in the following electronic databases: ERIC, EBSCO, Gale Cengage, and UNL Digital Commons. Both journals are listed in Cabell International's Directory of Publishing Opportunities.
Honors in Practice is accepting submissions for Volume 19 (2023). The deadline is January 1, 2023.
Editorial Policy for Honors in Practice
Honors in Practice (HIP) is a refereed journal of applied research publishing articles about innovative honors practices and integrative, interdisciplinary, and pedagogical issues of interest to honors educators. HIP employs a double-blind peer review process. Authors should include discussion of how central ideas and practices may be applied in campus settings other than their own, and the thesis should be located within a larger context such as theoretical perspectives, trends in higher education, or historical background. Essays should demonstrate awareness of previous discussions of the topic in honors publications and other relevant sources; bibliographies of JNCHC, HIP, and the NCHC Monograph Series are available on the NCHC website.
Brief Ideas about What Works in Honors
HIP also publishes short descriptions of a successful course, project, idea, or assignment. Submissions should be 500-750 words long; they should have three keywords; the abstract should be short (preferably one sentence); and references (if any) should be internal.
Submission Guidelines
We accept material by e-mail attachment in Word (not pdf). We do not accept material by fax or hard copy, nor do we receive documents with tracking.
If documentation is used, the documentation style can be whatever is appropriate to the author’s primary discipline or approach (MLA, APA, etc.), employing internal citation to a list of references (bibliography).
All essay submissions to the journals must include an abstract of no more than 250 words and a list of no more than five keywords. For a submission to “Brief Ideas about What Works in Honors,” the abstract should be short (preferably one sentence) and include a maximum of three keywords.
Only the “Brief Ideas” have minimum or maximum length requirements; otherwise, the length should be dictated by the topic and its most effective presentation.
Accepted essays are edited for grammatical and typographical errors and for infelicities of style or presentation. Authors have ample opportunity to review and approve edited manuscripts before publication.
All submissions and inquiries should be directed to Ada Long at adalong@uab.edu.
Abstracting and indexing services providing coverage of HIP are Academic OneFile; Cabell’s Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Educational Curriculum & Methods and Educational Psychology & Administration; Current Abstracts; Education Abstracts; Education Index; Education Research Complete; Education Source; Educator’s Reference Complete; ERIC; InfoTrac; and OmniFile Full Text Mega. Current and back issues of HIP are available in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Digital Commons repository and for purchase on the NCHC website.
Member Resources
9 Ways to Connect with Your Honors Community
'Tis the season for reflections and resolutions, as we look toward a new year and a fresh start in 2023. Many people, including your NCHC Staff, like to take the blank slate of a new year to plan, strategize, and build some positive habits that will set us up for success in the year ahead. If you are also the type to use your break as a reset button, consider using some of the resources below to get 2023 off to a great start!
Stay Connected
1. Share on the SocialLink newsfeed
The SocialLink feed in your member profile is a great place to connect and share news about your program and your students!
2. Ask/answer questions on the NCHC Discussion Forum
The NCHC Discussion Board is a great place to pose questions and gather feedback - and also to contribute your expertise for others that are looking for answers! Find a thread or start your own, and enjoy watching the resources build.
3. Join NCHC Social Media
Connect your program to NCHC's social media on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and personally on LinkedIn, to share news and achievements! You can also share NCHC posts to get the word out to your faculty and students about projects and resources they might be interested in.
4. Check your Mailing Preferences
NCHC shares the most current content directly to your inbox, so be sure to add nchc@unl.edu to your safe address list. University email filters are notorious for blocking messages, and you might be missing important info! If you aren't receiving messages from nchc@unl.edu but would like to, please reach out and we'll be sure you're opted-in!
5. Set Up an Information Flow
Forward on information from NCHC to your staff and students, or encourage them to sign up for a Contact account under your institutional membership. Emails will still go to you as the director, but they will have full access to SocialLink, forums, and resources! If you've had a change of leadership, be sure to let the office staff know so we can update your member files with the current contact information.
NCHC Resources
6. Career Center
Use the NCHC Career Center to search or list honors job openings nationwide. It's a great way to post open positions and recruit experienced honors faculty and staff!
7. Brush Up on NCHC Publications
As a member, you have access to the full library of NCHC Publications online! Watch your inbox for publication calls if you are interested in publishing your honors research – and your students can publish with UReCA as well!
8. Browse the NCHC Online Resource Center
NCHC is building a library of online resources and toolkits, both developed by NCHC committees and submitted by members as examples and templates. Browse or submit your own materials!
9. Watch for Faculty Awards & Grants in January
Several faculty recognition awards and grants open up at the end of January 2023; browse through the options and consider submitting an outstanding colleague or excellent project for recognition in 2023!