Benefits to Faculty
Many faculty members find teaching honors courses inherently interesting and rewarding. In addition to their well-developed academic skills, honors students are notably self-motivated, intellectually curious, mature and reliable. They are therefore students for whom creative and experimental pedagogy is suitable and welcome, for they enjoy taking risks, exploring previously unexplored terrain, learning collaboratively from and with their peers. They are also students who are quick to readily embrace academic challenges and, more often than not, exceed all usual academic expectations.
Of course, as with all teaching, typical challenges exist. Honors students sometimes place excessive pressure on themselves to succeed in every undertaking; the significance of temporary set-backs can be exaggerated. Given their typically high-powered high school curricula and activities, honors students can also suffer from the consequences of academic burnout as early as their first year of college. Even more ethereal is their tendency to internalize feelings of superiority as a bulwark against equally unfortunate feelings of inferiority; academic competition brings out the best in some, but excessive competition can also cause unnecessary harm. In any case, it perhaps goes without saying that bright young adults are typically complicated and complex individuals. This fact has notable although entirely manageable consequences both in and outside of the classroom. Honors professors are more likely to become de facto academic advisors and mentors for their honors students, this, in keeping with the traditions of liberal education.
The Chancellor’s Honors Program is pleased to offer 1-credit hour Chancellor’s Honors First-Year Seminars (UH 100). These courses are the equivalent of the university’s Freshman Seminars (FYS 129), except that they are exclusively for incoming Chancellor’s Honors students, for whom they are required, and except that they are graded (A, B, C or no credit). Compensation is paid to individual faculty member’s research account in the amount of $1500.00, the same amount offered for FYS 129. Proposed courses are selected from applications and upon consultation with the Chancellor’s Honors Program Faculty Policy & Curriculum Committee. Diversity of offerings and faculty is educationally ideal, while repeat offerings are also welcome.
The Chancellor’s Honors Program is also pleased to offer 3-credit hour Special Topics (UH 200-level) general education-approved seminars in the Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Cultures and Civilizations, and Natural Sciences, as well as 3-credit hour Concentration (UH 300-level) courses in the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Natural and Applied Sciences. Except in special circumstances in which a faculty member is not housed in a department (e.g., emeritus professor, senior full-time administrator), compensation for 3-credit hour courses is paid to the department and in a sum not to exceed $5,000.00. Proposed courses are selected from applications and upon consultation with the Chancellor’s Honors Program Faculty Policy & Curriculum Committee. Diversity of offerings and faculty is educationally ideal, while repeat offerings are also welcome.
The Chancellor’s Honors Program is always willing to receive informal requests from faculty for one-time funds that will be used to enhance and enrich their “UH” offering. Requests may be made directly to the program director. Priority will be given to the purchase of re-useable materials and those that portent to benefit the greatest number of students. Films, speakers, field experiences: all reasonable requests will be entertained.
The Chancellor’s Honors Program also offers Honors Foreign Study (UH 491), Honors Off-Campus Study (UH 492), Honors Independent Study (UH 493), and Honors Senior Project (UH 499). While faculty are not usually compensated for advising independent studies and Honors Thesis Projects, the possibility exists for supplemental support for study abroad and off-campus study.
