Honors College Council

No attendance available

Review the Honors College (HC) AY22 and AY23 Assessment Report and Feedback

• Reports are due April 14 every year.
  • They have moved the deadline to November 1.
• We are assessing the 21-22 and 22-23 years in that report.
• The instrument for assessing progress in the Honors College is the annual survey.
  • From the survey, you can see that we ask students how the various components of the Honors College help them complete the honors requirements, and we ask them to scale each from helping a lot to not as much.
  • We're not getting much response on the exit survey, so we're discussing removing it, as it's not super necessary.
  • The numbers have remained steady with some uptick in students' perceived levels of expertise toward their theses.
  • We added the stage 1 course and revised versions of the course and external communication requirements.
  • It looks like a robust assessment report.
• As growth happens, we should make appropriate changes for other campus modalities, as Ecampus and Cascades are still small and hard to do comparative analysis on
  • There are too few results from those populations, but hopefully those populations will grow.
• Feedback?
  • Comments from student members:
    • Jessica Fujinaga – As a senior, I think this survey is valuable. The survey allows seniors to reflect on progress in the Honors College.
  • Susan Rodgers – I feel the same way. It gives an idea of, here are the things we're doing and things we're assessing and where more work can be done. As you're aware, we have the 3rd learning outcome we are implementing. As part of the process before implementing the outcome, we must put in methods for students to achieve the learning outcome. Once that's done, the third outcome will be included in the senior survey.

• Michael Burand – You mentioned Cascades and Ecampus and that those population responses are small. That's due to the campuses being inherently small and not restrictions to the survey?
  • Susan - It's a little bit of both. The Cascade campus is very small.
  • Toni Doolen – We usually have about 20-35 students at Cascaded. We didn't start admitting Ecampus students until winter, and they are mostly part time and taking only a couple of courses at a time. How Ecampus engages with the Honors College will be bit more spread out in time. We need to ensure students at Cascade and Ecampus have access to the survey and are able to complete it. When we have such small groups, we don't really want to put those results out there as a representation of the whole population. It will likely be a couple of years before enough students are in queue in the Ecampus to separate them out. It will take a little while for the Cascade campus as well.

• Susan – Asking about Honors College colloquia and thesis and Honors College advising is appropriate, but we need to think about adjusting the survey appropriately regarding other things asked that are only applicable to students in-person and don't account for the Ecampus.

• Adam Gross – I'm curious about those who responded, "not at all." Would getting more information on that be helpful or not?
  • Toni – We get lots of narrative comments. It's hard to figure out how to take them, since there's so much context. We look at all narrative comments, and we also need to look at someone's whole survey results. If a student rated something "not at all," should there be a pop-up asking why they rated that way? My concern is that sometimes adding more narrative comment boxes discourages students from continuing the survey. Some AI is designed to interpret narrative data, so that might be something to investigate. For this survey's purpose, we're just using specific questions.
  • Adam – I'm surprised by 19 responses for "not at all" to the colloquial impacting students' reaching of learning outcomes. Is there a systematic reason as to why some of those responses are like that?
  • Toni – We use Qualtrics for the survey, so it's very easy to add an "if this response, then ask this." The thesis committee members get a different survey than the student gets, and this is also different from that of the faculty mentor. There is a separate survey about faculty. There's the faculty survey, exit survey, and annual survey. The surveys are specific to the learning outcome.
• Sahana Shah – How has engagement been with the survey going to the thesis committee members?
  • Toni - It's gone down. We used to do it by paper, and it was more likely to get filled out that way. Now, it's emailed out and can get lost in inboxes. We have to do some communications specifically to mentors to make sure they and the committee members complete the surveys, since they may not realize how essential it is to the assessment process.
  • Adam – I think you can schedule surveys to go out at like 8 AM on the day of a thesis defense, from DocuSign.
  • Sue – And we can include a note so that the mentor could then encourage student to fill out as well.
  • Adam - I'm more likely to complete something if it's on my mind and relevant at the time. It needs to be sent at the right time.
    • Is there a raffle for taking the survey?
      • Toni – We tried Amazon gift cards and things, but they did not much influence responses. There's a concern that students lose anonymity if they add their name to enter a raffle for a gift card.

Begin Exploration of HC Curricular Modifications in Response to OSU’s Transition From Baccalaureate Core to New Core Education

• Context from Toni: We will have to submit a curriculum proposal early next year [AY24-25] to update the HC’s course requirements, since baccalaureate core courses will be transitioning away. The HC curriculum requirements have been stable since they were created in 1995, with only a few minor updates to those requirements made about 10 years ago. It will be important to get this year’s Honors College Council (HCC) to have an initial discussion to make sure that we are positioned next fall to have more robust conversation and develop an update set of curriculum requirements.
  • There are two tracks in the Honors College now: the scholar and associates track.
    • The associate is primarily for those coming in as transfer students.
    • Students move into the associates track if they come in with lots of International Baccalaureate (IB)/Advanced Placement (AP) credits or other transfer credits.
    • There are several reasons a student may choose the associates track.
    • The requirements and number of credits in the categories did shift.
    • We moved some credits from the Baccalaureate Core (BC) to electives.
  • We have two tracks resulting in the exact same degree, but one is noted as associates versus scholars.
    • The thesis and colloquia is robust in both.
  • Even though the HC has grown from about 900 to 2000 students, we've been able to maintain the small course size experience.
    • In the most recent data (last 2 years), there have been courses that are quite large – general chemistry, biology lectures, and engineering 100.
    • We do have some honors sections where the lecture course is larger but has smaller studios and recitations.
    • The smaller course experience is still a robust part of the curriculum despite our growth.
  • We examined many credits students are completing. Students will often complete more than required.
  • A small number of students have freshman standing, since many come in with transfer credits.
    • They take more and more credits as time goes on.
    • There's a need to separate out student time when examining this, as it's different for transfer or other students.
    • A lot of students take more than the 30 required credits.
      • We want to look at this to ensure we offer sufficient credits for students to complete the requirements associated with the degree.
      • We want to make clear as we adjust curriculum that in no way are we saying we should have fewer honors credits.
  • Even with substantial growth, we have still been able to offer honors sections for students to complete their degrees.
  • We provide a curriculum that cuts across lots of different colleges and across different majors, but there are some areas where we struggle. For example, the College of Health or College of Agricultural Sciences, where courses we offer are quite small.
  • A concern with the current curriculum is that, depending on a student's major, the opportunities for honors electives and credits is variable and not particularly equitable across majors.
    • There are core business credits required for all business majors, so it's easy to add honors sections to the business core and know it's available to all students in that major.
    • How, as a college, do we equitably provide honors sections across all majors?
    • Since requirements are so unique and distinctive for some majors, it's very difficult.
    • If there are only 10 or so students in the Honors College that are in a particular major, it isn't sensible a lot of the time to host an honors course when there's no one to take it. The number of honors students in some majors are very small, so it logistically just doesn't make sense. For some students, colloquia and thesis are the main honors credit opportunities.
  • We want to understand the elements of the Honors College experience that contribute to the different learning outcomes.
    • There are some students who say the colloquia don't help at all, but also some say they're important to contribute to engaged inquiry.
    • Students also say BC courses contribute to engaged inquiry.
    • How do we, in a new curricular structure with no BC, ensure the learning outcomes are met?
    • In terms of the other learning outcomes, scholarly inquiry, we looked at how colloquia contributed to theses. Some students have found them very helpful in helping conceptualize their thesis topic or in finding mentors.
    • Also, we looked at other elements of the Honors College, like advising.
  • As we look at changing the curriculum, we don't want to lose the mechanisms ensuring the unique learning outcomes for the Honors College are satisfied.
  • We've come up with some ways to think about the opportunity around changing the curriculum and the HC Dean would like to propose a working group over the summer that has faculty from multiple colleges to help the HC start to think about this.
    • This will be a catalog change for us, as the Honors College curriculum requirements are the degree requirements.
    • We have four proposals, which are not comprehensive, but are starting points.
  • We can simplify the structure. We can take elective graduate credits and core education credits and put them in one bucket for students to pick and choose from.
  • Nearly all students in some majors, like in the College of Health, don't have electives, just additional BC credits.
  • Or, would going to a single track instead of two be better or more accessible to students?
  • We require the thesis, which other programs don't do.
  • One thing the advisors talked to Sue about is instead of set numbers in categories, we can provide ranges so that students with different majors and different goals have more flexibility to choose.
  • Currently, we have the requirement that a specific number of credits be upper division; 12 for both associate and scholar tracks. For some students, that's not ideal, and so they must take specific courses to meet upper division credits. The idea was that upper division courses might be more robust in contributing to learning outcomes.
  • We have BC courses that are lower division and some electives, particularly in engineering, that are lower division.
  • We don't want to change the curriculum in any way that doesn't meet learning outcomes.
  • I'm particularly interested in our faculty, and maybe students, being part of the working group over the summer. I'm hoping to come to the fall Honors College Council with alternatives that have been thought through. For faculty, I would be more than happy to give a stipend for summer work so that we can compensate them.
  • Questions:
    • Michael – Can you elaborate on the option to offer a range of credits?
      • Toni – Rather than a fixed number, the credits in each bucket can vary. A student can choose to meet their 30-credit requirement in various ways.
      • Michael – So it allows more flexibility in meeting requirements.
    • Kathryn McIntosh – To clarify about your request for faculty to work in the summer: Is it all summer or was there a different way to break it out? I might be available at the end of summer, but not at the beginning, so were there some different ways you were thinking?
      • Toni – I was thinking of getting faculty interested in working on this and then figure out what that looks like. I wasn't thinking full time. As a task force, we can be flexible. Once we've determined folks interested, we can figure out what the schedule should look like that works best for them. I suspect with a big committee we could also have meetings where some members were not present. We're looking at a total of 20-40 hours over the whole summer.
    • Michael – What is the deadline for Core Education?
      • Toni – The implementation is for students entering OSU in 2025, so the academic year 2026.
      • Susan – It's not just the Honors College. All of OSU will be in an awkward period where we're transitioning. If students started with BC, they will continue with it. There may be the opportunity for students starting this year to choose to transfer to the new curriculum. It will probably be years before people don't need BC courses anymore, so we need to continue giving those courses if that's what they need.
      • Sandy Neubaum – They're doing a push for colleges to get things in early, so in November, so that they have time to go back and make corrections.
  • Comment from Susan – While it's not a requirement, I would like to have people who are familiar with or willing to become familiar with core courses. It'd be good to have members with some familiarity with the Core Education.
  • Toni – The Honors College doesn't have full direction yet. The HC is so different from other colleges in our curriculum. Right now, only one pathway is in our catalog. We need to consider if the coming years will have one or two pathways. For everyone else, the BC is a separate section in the catalog. We'll figure it out behind the scenes, and I suspect we will have the same November deadline.
  • Sandy – Have you made a decision as to whether or not you'll offer transition courses?
    • Sue – No, we will not do transition courses.
    • Toni – Originally, we thought it would be a nice opportunity, but it just doesn't make sense. For us, stage 1 of the thesis credits is like that for us, but the 1-credit thesis course just doesn't fit well with transitions.
  • Michael – In terms of the Chemistry department, I know we have some people deep in the curriculum. Are those the type of people you're looking to recruit for the summer?
    • Toni - I'm looking for people familiar with majors of the Honors College. I will send something more formal with some more details about the level of effort expected for the summer task force. I'm just worried if we wait until fall... it's a heavy thing to leave for the Faculty Senate HCC next year to take on. It's good to have some alternatives and options developed.
    • Michael – Yeah, to be able to hit ground running in fall with the new HCC would be nice.
  • Adam – I like the idea of simplifying the curriculum to one track. I don't understand the difference in thesis credits. A thesis takes what it takes. Maybe 9 credits for the thesis is too much, but I was just thinking if we wanted to keep the overall upper division requirement at 30 for everyone, the thesis is an easy way to go up to 9. The thesis credits are usually taken more in junior and senior years, which might cause some difficulty with students' schedules and other courses, but they could be valuable to help bridge the gap.
    • Toni – Students pay for the thesis credits on top of the other credits needed for their major. It often doesn't come down to time commitment but paying for those credits.
  • Sahana – I like adding flexibility through the range of credits. People in my major tend to be very science-heavy and spend a lot of time on their theses. For the colloquia credits, I think allowing people to take based on their interests is a good idea.
  • Jennifer Martin – I agree with adding flexibility. Especially as Ecampus ramps up its options, it can be hard to find enough classes to fit in each distinct bucket. The thesis is going to take a bit more time. I wasn't sure if you needed students for the committee this summer, but I'm available.
  • Marina Ketrenos - I'm also available this summer.
  • Toni - I'd be interested in other faculty in the room weighting in. Do any of these options strike you as problematic? I'm hoping to get together that committee—more of a task force—to get rolling. Do any of you have concerns on these options?
    • Bo Sun – For the upper requirement of credits, if you don't set an upper limit, we need to have a way to keep the number of credits fair for students, since research sometimes takes longer or shorter. For people claiming more than 6 credits, they should have a way to make sure that's the proper level.
    • Kathryn – I love the idea of having students on the task force. If we can choose the simplest way possible, the better. Finding classes and registering and picking what to take becomes mind boggling. It will become more so when we change curriculum. The simpler the route, the better. Then, students can have flexibility.
    • Adam – The only thought I have is to make sure the social justice learning outcome happens with maximum flexibility and making sure it's somehow hit with whatever requirement buckets are set.
    • Sandy – I'm around this summer. I'm also aware the College of Business has only a very small number of students in the Honors College, but I'm around this summer, should that be accounted for.
    • Hilary Boudet – I'm not around much of this summer.
    • Vincent – Everything sounded fine to me. I have some novel ideas that I'd like to develop a bit and then will send to Toni. I'll try to come up with something simple, kind of easy. Like, one idea: turning a core class into an honors class by offering a side-part like recitation or something to alter the class just enough to count for honors credit.

Anything else?

• No other business