Honors College Strategic Plan
MISSION
The Honors College is dedicated to providing an enriched learning experience for intellectually capable and curious undergraduate students, and thereby serves as a catalyst for innovative growth and change at the University.
VISION
The Honors College will attract outstanding students to Texas Tech University and will provide excellence in undergraduate education. The Honors College will be a nationally recognized leader in the Honors movement. The Honors College will:
- Offer a liberal arts, research-oriented, and cross-disciplinary education;
- Encourage, stimulate, and support lifelong learning, teaching, research, and local and global citizenship;
- Foster the development of innovative classes both within disciplinary boundaries and across those boundaries;
- Champion the undergraduate educational mission within the larger university context;
- Provide the benchmark for outstanding teaching;
- Afford leadership opportunities for students; and
- Support the university's outstanding undergraduate student applicants for prestigious national and international scholarships and awards.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES AND GOALS
Access and Diversity:
Recruit, retain, and graduate a highly educated and broadly diverse student body. It is understood that diversity in the Honors college is defined very broadly to include ethnicity, gender, religion, political perspective, source of pre-collegiate education, socio-economic status, and any other physical, cultural, or philosophical differences among:
- Increase enrollment to 1000 and maintain that level.
- Increase the percentage of students from underrepresented groups to the university average.
- Develop a program to target recruitment efforts at schools with high performing students from underrepresented groups.
- Increase entering student average SAT score to 1332.
- Revise admissions policies to attract and retain a larger and more academically, ethnically, and intellectually diverse Honors College student population by giving greater consideration to factors other than the SAT score and class rank.
- Increase scholarship value to a level more competitive with other schools in our market by supplementing university scholarships with Honors College university unrestricted and endowment funds (private endowments, TTU Alumni Assn., etc.).
- The Honors College currently has articulation agreements with Blinn, El Paso and Tyler Junior Colleges. Pursue articulation agreements with other junior colleges, especially in West Texas.
- Retain students in the Honors College through mentoring, involvement in college activities, etc.
- Human Resources and Infrastructure - Maintain a productive workforce and a positive work environment.
- Work with university administration to obtain more suitable office and student use spaces.
- Locate new classroom space that is appropriate to the needs of an Honors College.
- Support faculty and staff to achieve career goals. For faculty this would include attainment of tenure, publication, professional development and attendance at professional meetings; for staff professional development and support to attain educational goals.
Undergraduate Learning:
Achieve regional and national recognition for outstanding Honors programs and opportunities, as well as the high quality of Honors College graduates. Provide enriched undergraduate learning opportunities such as interdisciplinary seminars, study abroad, undergraduate research, experiential learning, service learning, individual instruction, holistic advising, and co-curricular activities.
- Establish general learning outcomes for Honors graduates and develop assessments to demonstrate that the outcomes have been achieved. This includes critical thinking, oral and written communication skills, ability to integrate knowledge from different fields of study, cultural awareness, knowledge of international affairs, and other outcomes.
- Continue to promote the intellectual value of Honors classes in helping to achieve college educational goals and add new classes to the list.
- Increase Honors College national visibility by highlighting students who have received or been named finalist for major grants, fellowships or other awards.
- Promote Honors College degree programs (EVHM is a unique program intended to prepare students to represent nature to the general public; HAL is a broadly based liberal arts program). This will involve dissemination of information on the two degree programs on the TTU campus (fliers in Gordon Hall, other residence halls, special activities such as speakers or recreational travel, etc.) and off campus (contacts with high schools that have outdoors focused programs, etc.)
- Maintain and enhance course offerings that are balanced between those which satisfy university Core Curriculum requirements (history, political science, English, basic science, humanities, etc.) and interdisciplinary seminars.
- Increase the diversity of Honors College sponsored study abroad offerings.
Graduate and Professional Education:
Prepare students for graduate and professional education and work with students who are preparing to apply for national and international awards and fellowships.
- Increase percentage of Honors students who pursuer graduate education at TTU (and elsewhere).
- Inform students of opportunities for professional and graduate education and help students prepare application materials for such programs.
- Maintain a record of students who have gone to graduate or professional school following receipt of Bachelor’s degree.
- Encourage Honors students to enroll in 150-hour programs.
- Accept graduate hours earned at TTU in senior year as part of Honors 24-hour requirement.
Graduate program orientation sessions (Pizza with a Prof, etc):
Provide programs and services that disseminate knowledge and skills and that enhance the quality of life within the university and the community.
- Increase number of Honors students who participate in a civic engagement activity.
- Facilitate opportunities for faculty to teach Honors courses that incorporate a civic engagement component (service learning).
- Support involvement of students in Honors College activities such as weekly current events discussions, HON, LCG mentors, ambassadors, URF, College Bowl/Smart Fest, and Pizza with a Prof).
Research Productivity:
Emphasize URF student activities. Faculty (both in and outside of the Honors College) will be involved in mentoring student researchers. Promote faculty involvement in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Honors College faculty will be involved in research and creative activity.
- Expand support for URF and encourage more Honors students to complete an Honors thesis (and monitor the quality of theses).
Partnerships and Collaboration:
Build strategic partnerships and alliances with entities external to Honors.
- Expand partnerships with colleges and departments to teach Honors Courses.
- Offer more interdisciplinary seminars and facilitate team teaching.
- Create Honors tracks with appropriate units. These tracks will be test cases to determine effectiveness. We will develop specific learning outcomes for the Honors components in each track and set benchmarks for attainment of outcomes.
- Foster collaboration with TTUHHMI and CISER on undergraduate research.
- Develop campus relationships with Angelo State and other campuses.