Editor:
On Sept. 24 The Chronicle published a front page article and an unsigned editorial questioning the impact of the new departmental honors program on the Honors Program itself. Both suggested that departmental honors threatened some of what was good about honors?teaching by distinguished professors, diversity of student interests and ideas and the interdisciplinary approach. It was good news in both cases that honors students felt passionate about the program and about these key elements of it. Those quoted in the story and the author of the editorial saw clearly the value of honors to their education and believed it was worth fighting to preserve.
The idea of departmental honors came from two years of discussions over ways to address the needs of special categories of students who transferred to the university after completing their general education requirements elsewhere, or who had substantial AP credits that permitted them to avoid lower division general education. Departmental honors was meant to prepare students for research careers or graduate school. Recognizing that the traditional liberal education by the Honors Program was preferable, the Honors Policy Board considered a range of choices of how students might graduate with honors. Departmental honors was one of the routes that made sense.
This fall, for the first time, departmental honors is in place in some departments and is serving the needs of a handful of students. In each case, first the department submitted a proposal to the Honors Policy Board that described the range of classes, made a commitment to engaging excellent faculty and described the ways honors classes in departments would match the objectives of the program more generally. What was perhaps less clear in those negotiations were the ways the two worlds?departmental honors and the general Honors Program?would interact. That exchange, this type of interaction, is at the heart of what honors has historically represented.
Today, the Honors Program is focusing on new ways to create a stronger sense of community that recognizes and celebrates connections. It makes sense to build on this discussion initiated by honors students themselves in The Chronicle. This should be a discussion that focuses on the nature of the connections, the potential mechanisms for the movement between the two. What would negatively impact the program would be a divided house?two tracks that never intersect. The shape and extent of those interactions still need to evolve through an open process.
Honors education challenges exceptional students to do their best thinking and learning, calling for deeper and more independent thought. Recognizing this, and in fact honoring what it represents, the discussion over the shape the Honors Program takes as it seeks to address the needs of a broad range of students must be informed by the insights of its students. Honors students understand the value of honors education in unique ways and value the breadth of the students in the program. We value this contribution and know that our effort to strengthen what honors contributes to the university will be enriched because of it.
Martha Bradley
Honors Program Director