Honors Forum Council Minutes -- February 28th, 2000
Present:
Anita Steigerwald, Ruth Copans, Tabitha Orthwein, Amelia Rauser, Sue Bender, Michael Arnush, Phil Boshoff, Jon Ramsey, Kim Helms, Katie Cella
Absent:
Francesca Cichello
Minutes from February 21 reviewed & approved.
Courses vs. credits: Resolution of Honors policy regarding maintaining membership in the Honors Forum. In light of reconfiguration, 3 courses rather than 7 credits, not including HF101 & HF301, will now be the requirement.
HF Courses with an add-on component: There are problems with the intent vs. execution of the add-on. K, i.e., keeping it separate from the core course while establishing & maintaining cohesiveness. It is Difficultdifficult, psychologically to get away from relying on the "extra-stuff" to make it honors. General consensus is that HF add-on component is should be treated separately & discreetly.
The Honors Workshop with faculty in late March(?) to will focus on the Honors course construction- and deal with the ambiguous nature of "what is honors". Sue mentioned possibility of this being the subject of Pedagogy Workshop. The Council suggested instead to keep the workshop separate from the Pedagogy series.
Jon proposed that HF101 (or, for that matter, any honors course that would serve as gateway to honors) should be- required of incoming freshmanfirst-years. HF101 will be required of class of 2005 incoming plus three courses in between, in addition to the three course-requirement.
Tabitha to coordinate a separate admissions mailing in response to RSVP's to join HF, detailing HF101 requirement as well as other registration information & info.
Teaching vs. credit issue in AH101-102 presented raised by Penny Jolly: the Council discussed whether the additional prep for the HF section of this course should be compensated. After considerable debate the Council decided, with the chair in the minority, not to compensate lest it set a precedent for compensating the delivery of all HF courses.- course prep, # of courses prepping for & teaching compared to amount of teaching credit they are receiving vs. what the college dictates as required for teachers. Very unclear about this discussion-??
The Council also recognized the difficulties in developing HF courses when juxtaposed with enrollment pressures, compensation and workload. One strategy the Council will pursue is to target new faculty, including via New Faculty Orientation, and encourage them to develop courses and contribute to the program
Enrollment pressure vs. compensation issue. Workload imagined, when designating a section as Honors as being too great. Strategy for targeting new faculty and getting new courses- Faculty Orientation to include Honors Forum and what they can do to invigorate the program.