From the inception of the integration of predominantly White institutions in higher education marked by "Sweatt v. Painter" in 1950, The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) has been a battleground for educational equity. The university continues to find itself at ground zero in the battle for race and equity in higher education and…

While studies of predictive factors for success in honors have been increasingly creative and expansive on what these factors might include, they have rarely challenged the dominant, virtually monolithic definitions of success. The majority of studies measure success either by collegiate grade point averages (GPAs) or retention rates in honors,…

As a recent alumnus of the West Virginia University Honors College, I recognize my honors experience as a multi-faceted, intellectual journey that pushed me academically, professionally, and personally to become the lifelong learner that I am today. As the only Black honors student in my graduating class, I was aware of my tokenism, especially in…

Honors programs, as home to the highest test scores and highest GPAs on many campuses (for reasons that are not particularly justifiable), can become assembly lines for prestige-scholarship applications and their dangling appendages, the applicants themselves. As honors programs become cogs in universities' PR machines, they decouple from their…

From the dawn of the Roman Empire, slavery played a major and essential role in Roman society. While slavery never completely disappeared from ancient Roman society, its position in the Roman economy shifted at the beginning of the period called Late Antiquity (14 CE-500 CE). At this time, the slave system of the Roman world adjusted to a new…

For decades, research has shown that higher levels of education correspond to increased interest in politics and civic engagement. Despite the vast amount of scholarly attention, why this link exists is still disputed. One theory about the connection is the civic education hypothesis, which claims that the causal link between education and civic…

Beginning in 2013 and spanning four research articles, we have implemented an empirical analysis protocol for honors education that is rooted in demography (Scott; Scott and Smith; Smith and Scott "Growth"; Smith and Scott, "Demography"). The goal of this protocol is to describe the structure and distribution of the honors…

Making writing less scary for students and focusing on the messy, recursive nature of writing helps students use the writing process to bring forth the thoughts that might otherwise not find their way into essays. Students who revisit their writing also revisit their thinking and are empowered to cultivate and articulate that thinking in clearer…

High-impact educational practices (HIPs) have long been central to honors pedagogy. From undergraduate research to service learning, study abroad, internships, and writing-intensive courses, these practices shape the honors educational experience and influence retention successes in honors. These practices also inform the synergy between honors…

City as Text™ (CAT) is one of the earliest structural forms of experiential learning created and practiced in the United States. This monograph explores the centrality of writing in the process of active learning, focusing primarily on the Faculty Institutes and Honors Semesters that foster CAT experiences. All manifestations of this pedagogical…

This handbook is intended to help all those who design, administer, and implement honors thesis programs--honors directors, deans, staff, faculty, and advisors--evaluate their thesis programs, solve pressing problems, select more effective requirements or procedures, or introduce an entirely new thesis program. The authors' goal is to provide…

Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is a comprehensive public university located just five miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio. At NKU, educators aspire to provide a personal educational experience to the more than 12,000 undergraduate students who enroll each year. Given the demographics of the undergraduate student body--more than 50% are…

The purpose of this study was to apply several measures of learning and engagement to a comparable cohort of honors and non-honors students in order to generate a preliminary model of student engagement. Specific purposes were the following: (1) to determine the feasibility for use of several measures of student characteristics that may affect…

In this article, Marygold Walsh-Dilley supports the notion that research in honors is a lot less common than it would appear to a casual observer and that such analyses will help administrators demonstrate the significant benefits of honors education for both honors students and the larger colleges and universities they serve. She also supports a…

The religious contexts in which early Christian communities grew were important factors in the first-century development of Christianity, affecting what it meant to become a Christian--either as a convert from a background in Judaism or as a convert from a background in Greek, Roman, or Egyptian cults. Surrounding religions and cultural norms…