Students at the Farquhar Honors College can now learn from a variety of professionals, as the college has expanded its faculty to include graduate and professional professors.
Don Rosenblum, dean of the Honors College, said that, because of the strong credentials that graduate and professional faculty members offer, the Honors College developed six new courses for the upcoming academic year. Twenty new courses are in the development process for following years.
The new courses include three seminars, which will be taught in the fall: “We Are All Biased: Social Stratification,” taught by Tara Ellsley from the University School, “Alcohol, Drugs and Society,” taught by Mance Buttram from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and “Law and Literature,” taught by Michael Richmond from the College of Law. “Introduction to Biomedical Research,” taught by Leonard Levy from the College of Medicine, will also be taught in the fall.
In the winter 2017 semester, Sue Kabot from the Mailman-Segal Institute will teach “Autism Today,” and Martha Snyder from the College of Engineering and Computing will teach “Design Thinking.”
Rosenblum said that this year’s academic realignment created the Honors College and has allowed the university to celebrate academic achievement and create this new opportunity for honors students.
“Paraphrasing President George Hanbury, ‘We no longer have undergraduate and graduate faculty. We have NSU faculty,’” he said.
Students can apply to become a part of the Honors College at any time during their time at NSU. Requirements for the program include working toward one of the honors citations, participating in honors courses and activities, maintaining a cumulative 3.5 GPA or higher, and completing all honors coursework at NSU.
Rosenblum described students in the Honors College as those who serve, in higher proportions, as leaders in clubs, organizations, athletics and other groups on campus.
“The students who are in honors are leaders inside and outside the classroom,” he said. “I would think that 20 years from now, we’ll be reading about current honors students and the contributions they’re making to their community, to their profession and globally.”
To introduce honors students to the faculty who will teach the honors courses, the Honors College held a forum prior to the opening of registration for the fall semester. Rosenblum described the forum as a speed-dating workshop in which students could ask faculty members about the courses offered, as well as other information.
“The strength of an honors program is only as good as the quality of our students and of our faculty,” he said. “I just kind of put the pieces together, but it’s really the partnership between students and faculty. Our strength, as a university, is the student-faculty interactions. All of the faculty at this university are here for students to find support.”
Faculty and their home deans will decide if the new courses will be a part of the faculty members’ regular course load or if teaching the honors courses will be an addition to the load they have already committed to administering.
Rosenblum said the Honors Program was established about 14 years ago and has been “a great success.” Currently, there are approximately 350 students in the program, and Rosenblum expects there to be approximately 600 by the year 2020.
For more information on the Honors College, or to apply to the Honors Program, visit honors.nova.edu.
