Honors Value Added: Where We Came From, and What We Need to Know Next

The pressure is on, and growing greater when it comes to defining, disseminating, and defending the value of higher education generally and the reasons for funding it (Harnisch 2011). Complaints abound regarding the rising costs of higher education, and many legislators and the public are demanding accountability. Funding cuts are forcing many colleges and universities to prioritize and to evaluate what merits support and what does not. As a part of a large array of undergraduate programs, honors programs and honors colleges face increasingly greater pressure to justify their existence. That said, honors programs and colleges are in a good position to make a case for the value that honors adds to institutional outcomes. Honors education is known nationally and internationally for leadership in high-quality undergraduate programs. Honors faculty enjoy the opportunity to create unique and innovative learning environments, with academically talented undergraduate students as the immediate beneficiaries. Institutions benefit from recruitment of ambitious, motivated students who typically have higher retention and graduation rates when compared to those in the traditional student population. Yet despite these obvious institutional benefits, questions persist regarding the value that honors adds and how precisely that value is to be measured

Variability and Similarity in Honors Curricula across Institution Size and Type

As Samuel Schuman argues in his seminal introduction to honors administration, “The single most important feature of any honors program is its people: the students who learn there and the faculty who teach them” (33). Next, argues Schuman, comes the curriculum; the context of the learning that takes place when honors faculty and honors students come together is framed by the curriculum. Honors curricula provide opportunities for honors students to endeavor challenges beyond what traditional undergraduate curricula provide. For faculty, honors is a unique opportunity to blend research and teaching and to provide a curricular laboratory for experimenting with varied topics and pedagogical approaches

Variability and Similarity in Honors Curricula across Institution Size and Type

As Samuel Schuman argues in his seminal introduction to honors administration, “The single most important feature of any honors program is its people: the students who learn there and the faculty who teach them” (33). Next, argues Schuman, comes the curriculum; the context of the learning that takes place when honors faculty and honors students come together is framed by the curriculum. Honors curricula provide opportunities for honors students to endeavor challenges beyond what traditional undergraduate curricula provide. For faculty, honors is a unique opportunity to blend research and teaching and to provide a curricular laboratory for experimenting with varied topics and pedagogical approaches

An Empirical Analysis of Factors Affecting Honors Program Completion Rates

One of the most important issues in any educational environment is identifying factors that promote academic success. A plethora of research on such factors exists across most academic fields, involving a wide range of student demographics, and the definition of student success varies across the range of studies published. While much of the research is devoted to looking at student performance in particular courses and concentrates on examination scores and grades, many authors have directed their attention to student success in the context of an entire academic program; student success in this context usually centers on program completion or graduation and student retention. The analysis in this paper follows the emphasis of McKay on the importance of conducting repeated research on student completion of honors programs at different universities for different time periods. This paper uses a probit regression analysis as well as the logit regression analysis employed by McKay in order to determine predictors of student success in the honors program at a small, public university, thus attempting to answer McKay’s call for a greater understanding of honors students and factors influencing their success. The use of two empirical models on completion data, employing different base distributions, provides more robust statistical estimates than observed in similar studies

Genetic Variants Related to Longer Telomere Length are Associated with Increased Risk of Renal Cell Carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: Relative telomere length in peripheral blood leukocytes has been evaluated as a potential biomarker for renal cell carcinoma (RCC) risk in several studies, with conflicting findings. OBJECTIVE: We performed an analysis of genetic variants associated with leukocyte telomere length to assess the relationship between telomere length and RCC risk using Mendelian randomization, an approach unaffected by biases from temporal variability and reverse causation that might have affected earlier investigations. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Genotypes from nine telomere length-associated variants for 10 784 cases and 20 406 cancer-free controls from six genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of RCC were aggregated into a weighted genetic risk score (GRS) predictive of leukocyte telomere length. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: Odds ratios (ORs) relating the GRS and RCC risk were computed in individual GWAS datasets and combined by meta-analysis. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS: Longer genetically inferred telomere length was associated with an increased risk of RCC (OR=2.07 per predicted kilobase increase, 95% confidence interval [CI]:=1.70-2.53, p0.5) with GWAS-identified RCC risk variants (rs10936599 and rs9420907) from the telomere length GRS; despite this exclusion, a statistically significant association between the GRS and RCC risk persisted (OR=1.73, 95% CI=1.36-2.21, p<0.0001). Exploratory analyses for individual histologic subtypes suggested comparable associations with the telomere length GRS for clear cell (N=5573, OR=1.93, 95% CI=1.50-2.49, p<0.0001), papillary (N=573, OR=1.96, 95% CI=1.01-3.81, p=0.046), and chromophobe RCC (N=203, OR=2.37, 95% CI=0.78-7.17, p=0.13). CONCLUSIONS: Our investigation adds to the growing body of evidence indicating some aspect of longer telomere length is important for RCC risk. PATIENT SUMMARY: Telomeres are segments of DNA at chromosome ends that maintain chromosomal stability. Our study investigated the relationship between genetic variants associated with telomere length and renal cell carcinoma risk. We found evidence suggesting individuals with inherited predisposition to longer telomere length are at increased risk of developing renal cell carcinoma

Stability in the Context of Change

Last year at this time, I began to think about what I might adopt as a presidential theme. What could NCHC reasonably accomplish in 2008? If you recall, at that time we hired Liz Beck as Interim Executive Director, and one month before the conference we hired Cindy Hill. Major changes were inevitable in our organization. I began my presidency with a goal to work with the Board of Directors to establish stability in the face of these organizational changes. The goal of stability was in response to the need for a national office that would provide the resources for NCHC’s growth—stability to support growth in changing conditions

Book Review \u3ci\u3eHow to Write a BA Thesis: A Practical Guide from Your First Ideas to Your Finished Paper\u3c/i\u3e (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) By Charles Lipson

A hallmark of honors education is high-quality undergraduate research. For honors faculty and administrators, curricular planning that results in excellent thesis research can be a special challenge because honors students represent a wide range of disciplines and vary in competency and preparation for research. How to Write a BA Thesis meets this challenge. It is a well-developed, practical guidebook for accomplishment of honors and/or undergraduate research. The contents are built on a developmental continuum or time table beginning with the conceptual basis for a thesis. As such, it is applicable to one-semester projects as well as theses or other indepth projects

Honors Value Added: Where We Came From, and What We Need to Know Next

The pressure is on, and growing greater when it comes to defining, disseminating, and defending the value of higher education generally and the reasons for funding it (Harnisch 2011). Complaints abound regarding the rising costs of higher education, and many legislators and the public are demanding accountability. Funding cuts are forcing many colleges and universities to prioritize and to evaluate what merits support and what does not. As a part of a large array of undergraduate programs, honors programs and honors colleges face increasingly greater pressure to justify their existence. That said, honors programs and colleges are in a good position to make a case for the value that honors adds to institutional outcomes. Honors education is known nationally and internationally for leadership in high-quality undergraduate programs. Honors faculty enjoy the opportunity to create unique and innovative learning environments, with academically talented undergraduate students as the immediate beneficiaries. Institutions benefit from recruitment of ambitious, motivated students who typically have higher retention and graduation rates when compared to those in the traditional student population. Yet despite these obvious institutional benefits, questions persist regarding the value that honors adds and how precisely that value is to be measured

A Collaborative Recruitment Model between Honors and Athletic Programs for Student Engagement and Retention

Acommon need in honors education is to recruit a student cohort that actively engages in educational experiences, demonstrates a motivation for academic challenge, and is likely to complete the honors program. Honors programs use varied quantitative (Green & Kimbrough) and qualitative admissions criteria to yield this desired student cohort. However, research is limited on the value of quantitative measures, i.e., SAT scores, grade point average, and/or class rank, in predicting qualities such as student engagement or outcomes such as program completion. Attempting to recruit a more diversified student cohort and to increase student engagement, the Clarion University Honors Program initiated a collaborative recruitment model with the athletic program. In addition to the goal of student engagement, this model was designed to be mutually beneficial through coordination of recruitment scholarship incentives. From the standpoint of the athletic program, student athletes’ engagement in honors education could positively affect academic performance and consequently graduation rates. From the perspective of the honors program, admission of student athletes could create a more engaged student population within the honors community