Two Renee Crown Honors Program directors met with students in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management Thursday to discuss the new requirements of the program in an effort the quell the frustration that some honors students have been feeling in response to recent changes to the requirements.

This was one of seven meetings scheduled during the past week to offer an open forum for students to ask questions and learn about the new requirements. Although these meetings were geared toward the specific schools, they were open to any student who wished to attend.

Samuel Gorovitz, founding director of the honors program, opened the meeting by acknowledging the ‘large amounts of confusion’ many students were going through. He then said the objective of the meeting was to help students ‘chart a path through the requirements.’

In developing the new requirements for the honors program, the faculty wanted to be able to describe what sort of person an honors student is, not exactly what they accomplished, Gorovitz said. That is why the new requirements focus on attaining six attributes they believe define an honors student, rather than focusing on a list of specific courses. These attributes include depth, breadth, command of language, global awareness, civic engagement and collaborative capacity.

Students in the honors program must now complete several requirements in each of these categories. However, ‘multiple counting is the key,’ Gorovitz said. Courses, on and off-campus activities, studying abroad and other accomplishments can be counted in several different categories at once.

Hanna Richardson, associate deputy director of the honors program, handed out a mock-up of the new requirement sheet the program will be using from now on and what she referred to as a ‘shopping list’ of courses that fulfill several of the new requirement categories. She then went through a walkthrough of what a Whitman student may take through his or her four years in the honors program in order to fill all of the requirements.

The faculty members are still receiving feedback on the new requirement sheet and are planning on making a few small changes, Richardson said; however, she assured the students that a blank copy would be available for them online by next week.

Gorovitz said throughout the meeting the new requirements are doable for all students. Some students said they are not so sure.

‘There’s a lot of students who don’t think they’re going to be able to complete the new requirements, because some people are already into their majors, and so to take courses that (the new program) requires would be harder for them,’ said Ben Croner, a sophomore policy studies major. ‘Pretty much what the honors (faculty) are saying now is that, ‘We’ll assess everyone on a case-by-case basis,’ which doesn’t seem like the best way to go about things.’

Gorovitz said students who believe they would have a hard time completing the program are welcome to work with advisers and maybe even given exceptions.

‘We’re in transition from an old program to a new one. Things are untidy, especially for second-year students,’ said Gorovitz at Thursday’s meeting.

Croner is currently working closely with the student organization, Undergraduates for a Better Education, which is spearheading a petition meant to grandfather the old program’s requirements onto this year’s sophomores and freshmen.

‘I think it’s a good program, but I don’t think freshmen and sophomores should necessarily have to do it,’ Croner said. ‘The thing with UBE is that they understand the reason they’re doing the new program. They want honors students to be more distinguished, they want the title to be more prestigious, so they’re makings the program tougher.’

Many honors students are still confused as to what exactly the new requirements are asking of them.

‘Coming into it, I didn’t think we were provided with much information,’ said Heather Tran-Son-Tay, a freshman public relations major. ‘We didn’t really have – at least I didn’t – any expectations.’

‘(The Honors Web site) is really convoluted. You want just a list of the requirements and you get two paragraphs about half a requirement,’ said Tim Sydlo, a freshman international relations major.

Neither Tran-Son-Tay nor Sydlo attended an informational meeting this past week.

‘The people who came to the meetings understand. But a lot of people didn’t come, so I don’t know what’s going on out there,’ said Richardson, who hopes honors students who are confused will not only come to the last meeting, scheduled for next Monday from 5 to 6:30 p.m. in Gifford Auditorium, but also come into the honors office to talk to an adviser before registration.

Published on October 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm