How to Get Involved in Honors Education

How to Get Involved in Honors Education

Thank you for your interest in being a part of the Commonwealth Honors College (CHC), whose mission is to provide an enhanced educational experience for motivated and qualified undergraduates. Faculty have major roles in the delivery and oversight of the Honors curriculum, and the success of the program depends critically on the continued involvement of faculty as instructors and mentors, as well as participants in the various committees with responsibility for academic oversight. 

Teaching

Students who are following the Honors curriculum are required to take a minimum number of Honors courses. The College takes the lead on providing the instruction for:

  • Honors sections of College Writing (Englwrit 112H)
  • Ideas that Change the World (Honors 201H) courses
  • Junior year common experience course (Honors 323H), currently How the 1960s Changed America
  • One-credit special topic seminars, now called Honors Discovery Seminars (Honors 391AH)

Faculty are needed as instructors for the one-credit special topic seminars, for which RFPs are distributed to all faculty[DF1] . 

Information about Teaching Honors Discovery Seminars

To satisfy the Depth of Study part of the curriculum, students who are following the Departmental Honors track need to take at least two Honors courses in their major, one of which must be at the 300 level or higher. Many Departments do not offer such courses, and so CHC allows students and faculty to create them as needed. 

There is a full range of Honors course possibilities; two popular routes involve Honors Independent Studies (ISH) either as a stand-alone activity or as an enrichment to an existing non-honors course (thereby converting it to an Honors course). In these two cases, students need the help of faculty, first to agree to facilitate the activity and then to help the student craft the proposal for review by the relevant Honors Program Director and the Academic Standards Committee (a sub-committee of the Faculty Senate Commonwealth Honors Council). The College also encourages proposals for yearlong Thesis Seminars, particularly those with an interdisciplinary approach.  

Administration and Service

In terms of service to the institution, faculty can contribute in several ways to the oversight of the Honors curriculum. The most extensive contribution is as an Honors Program Director (HPD). There are about 80 such individuals (looking after about 109 Honors programs), whose responsibilities are set out below. HPDs are appointed by Departments and the duration of the appointment is by mutual agreement between the faculty member and the respective Department Head/Chair. 

Faculty are also invited to serve as members of the Faculty Senate Commonwealth Honors College Council that advises the Dean and oversees policy, curricular matters, and academic standards. Contact the Faculty Senate office if interested. Faculty may also serve as members of the Council committees even if they are not members of the Council. The Academic Standards Committee reviews over 600 proposals of various sorts (independent studies and theses and portfolios) in two review periods each year and needs double-digit membership to manage this in a timely fashion. Please contact the Chair of the Council if interested in serving in this capacity, or helping with the work of one of the other committees (Policy, Program, and Courses).  

Honors College Facts

Each fall, the University admits about 650 students to the Commonwealth Honors College; a further small cohort is admitted through the on-campus admission process, and some transfer students are also admitted. There are about 3,000 students in CHC; further details of numbers can be found on the About page of the CHC website. 

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Teaching Honors Discovery Seminar: Course Overview and Information for Faculty Interested in Teaching Honors 391H

Teaching Honors Discovery Seminar: Course Overview and Information for Faculty Interested in Teaching Honors 391H

Course Description 

This one-credit seminar-style course meets once a week for 50 minutes and is required of all Commonwealth Honors College students. Every section is open to honors students of any major. Advanced knowledge of the topic should not be necessary.

Enrollment in Honors 391AH sections is limited to 15. 

Compensation

Faculty teaching these seminars will receive a stipend of $2335. 

  • For full-time faculty, the funds will be transferred to your department’s GOF (General Operating Fund) account. These are not RTF (Research Trust Fund) funds. You will need to contact your department’s financial manager in order to use or be paid out these funds. 
  • Faculty emeriti and part-time faculty will be paid directly by Commonwealth Honors College throughout the semester.  
  • Faculty who are not full-time faculty should state in which unit of the university and how many courses they will be teaching during the semester.
  • Faculty also have the option of donating the stipend to the Commonwealth Honors College student research grant program. 

Goals

Honors 391AH is intended to inspire a love of learning and to help prepare students with skills necessary for the completion of senior theses and projects and the professional workplace. It is also designed to facilitate contact between Commonwealth Honors College students and departmental faculty in a small, seminar-style setting and to provide an intellectually stimulating, cross-disciplinary experience for both the faculty and students involved.

Curriculum Overview

The subject matter of each section is chosen by its instructor. There is no restriction on the field or topic around which the course is centered, but all courses should be accessible to students from all majors; no advanced knowledge should be required.

Preference will be given to courses that incorporate specific skills into the curriculum that will help prepare students for the senior thesis or project. These include writing in general but also may include writing abstracts and literature reviews, competence in research, the definition of a research question, computer literacy in presenting research results and public speaking.

The point of these courses is to allow faculty members to create short, compelling courses in areas of personal interest to them and to teach courses they have always wanted to teach while helping students hone the skills necessary for Honors thesis work.

Examples of Courses Currently Being Offered

Thesis Preparation Course Content

Note that this course is part of the preparation for students to do an Honors Thesis, which is required of all CHC students entering as of September 2018.

Submissions for this RFP will be ranked according to the components of thesis skills developed in the class as well as the completeness of the description of the content of the class to be offered.  Not all need to be included, but at least two or three should be described in the application and incorporated into the syllabus.

Components of thesis skills include

  • Writing assignments closely commented upon by the faculty member for grammar, clarity of argument, expression, and formatting.
  • Revision of drafts to follow the instructor’s suggestions and directions.
  • Compiling a bibliography and correctly referencing sources in the text of a paper.
  • Using appropriate sources of information for research, including where appropriate UMass librarians.
  • Writing a literature review.
  • Using discipline-appropriate forms of presentation, for example, tables, graphs, pictures, and maps.

Required Items for Syllabus

The following paragraphs must appear in the syllabus for your section:

  • Attendance Policy
  • Exam conflicts policy
  • Plagiarism Policy
  • UMass’ Academic Honesty Statement
  • Accommodation Statement

Apply to Teach Honors Discovery Seminar

Complete the Honors 391AH Application to Teach

Commonwealth Honors College Class Profile

University Analytics and Institutional Research (UAIR) maintains statistics on students who participate in Commonwealth Honors College. Visit UAIR for information about entering and continuing CHC students.

Teaching Honors

Honors pedagogy is always evolving and looks much different in different contexts depending on the goals of its faculty and institution. Honors courses across the country vary widely in their learning outcomes and designs. The National Collegiate Honors Council's monograph, Inspiring Exemplary Teaching and Learning: Perspectives on Teaching Academically Talented College Students points out several common themes, though:

"One is the groundswell of interest in reflective practice and all of its implications: critical thinking, problem-solving, and ethical and moral reasoning. A second is the emphasis on faculty development and pedagogical innovation and creativity ... Curricular, program, and institutional reform is a third ... The compelling power of integrative learning is another: collaborative learning, cooperative learning, team-based approaches, interdisciplinarity, and synthesis of knowledge..." (Clark and Zubizaretta 5)

Honors Teaching Links

What is Honors? - National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC)

Community or Contact Zone? Deconstructing an Honors Classroom by Phyllis Surrency and Mary Marwitz

Logistical FAQs

USEFUL LINKS

The Honors Research Guide is the gateway to all the online research tools developed for Honors 391AH, including information about evaluating the reliability of web sources, a guide to making effective posters, and tips on how to avoid plagiarism.

The Honors website News page announces events of interest to the College and community. It can be accessed from the front page of the Commonwealth Honors College web site and is frequently updated, so again please check the site and encourage your students to check it too.

ENROLLMENT

Where do I get my SPIRE roster?
All instructors have SPIRE access, through an account and password issued by OIT. (If you have not received, or have lost or forgotten your account name and password, OIT staff in A107 Lederle will issue you a new one. Just be sure to bring along a valid ID.) Log on to SPIRE and click on “Class Management” in the drop-down menu to the left of the screen, then on “Class Rosters” and the appropriate term.

How do I know who is enrolled in my class?
Your SPIRE roster contains the names of students officially registered for your class.

What if a student is present in my class but not on my roster?
If any students are present in your class but missing from your roster, make sure they are in fact registered for your class (and not another). If they are not on your roster but wish to enter your class now, if you wish, you may add them to your section as long as they have met the prerequisite. To add students to your section, submit their names—along with their student ID number (absolutely essential) and class year—records [at] honors [dot] umass [dot] edu (by email).

How and when do I turn in my final grades?
Instructors enter their own grades directly through SPIRE at the end of the regular academic semester. Only at that time does SPIRE accept grades, again through “Class Management” and then “Record Grades” for the appropriate term.

AUDIO-VIDEO EQUIPMENT

Most sections of Honors 391AH are scheduled in AV-equipped “smart” classrooms.

For technical questions and issues, including more information on classroom technology or multimedia equipment loan and support, please contact Classroom Technology Services (CTS).

CTS, in Dickinson, Room 1(413-545-5768), will deliver TVs, DVDs, VCRs, data projectors, video recording equipment, tape/CD players, etc., to classrooms during regular daytime class hours. (No laptops are available through CTS.) For evening classes, instructors may pick up equipment from CTS before 4:30 p.m.; equipment must be returned to CTS by 9:00 a.m. the following morning.

COURSE AND INSTRUCTOR EVALUATIONS
Course evaluations are completed online by the students. Notification is emailed to the students approximately two weeks before the end of the semester. Additional information for instructors is available online.

ENCOURAGING STUDENT RESPONSE
The primary challenge with online survey administration is continuing to obtain appropriate response rates. Instructors play a critical role in this effort. When students believe that their opinions matter to the instructor, the department, and to the campus, they are more likely to participate.

Many instructors ask students to complete their surveys during class using their laptop, phone, or tablet. Additional suggestions for encouraging student response to course surveys can be found online.

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