A record number of incoming freshmen applied to join the University Honors Program this fall.
Of the 4,250 students who were accepted into N.C. State this spring, 946 students submitted applications to the University Honors Program—an “unprecedented number” in the program’s history, according to Carolyn Veale, assistant director of the UHP.
“The UHP is not just a program for the academically gifted students,” Veale said. “Our mission lies in research, scholarship and multidisciplinary appreciation.”
On Tuesday, 350 of the 946 applicants were offered a spot in the UHP. Of all of those accepted, Veale said she expects 185 students to join the program.
The majority of the students who decline to enroll in the program elect to attend another institution, according to Veale. Others decide to enroll in other programs such as the University Scholars Program.
“We would like to grow in terms of the caliber of students who are applying to N.C. State and getting accepted, but we are just in a position right now where we can’t really increase the number of students that we accept based on what we give them, namely the Honors seminars,” Veale said.
Veale said this year was the first time the program added a third question to its application. The three questions dealt with past and present Honors seminars, the students’ preparation to be model UHP students, and the students’ selection of a major and what they hope to gain from their course of study.
“We’re really excited in terms of what we’re getting back from the question regarding Honors seminars,” Veale said.
According to Veale, students must have an appreciation for reading and writing in order to be successful in the program. “If a math major comes in and says that they only want to do math, then we tend to see those types of students struggle most,” Veale said.
Students in the Honors program are required to take 12 credit hours worth of Honors seminars during their undergraduate careers.
“Honors seminars are the heart and core of our program,” Veale said.
These specialized classes are intended to keep the class sizes small (about 20 students in each) and reflect the program’s mission of embracing an interdisciplinary perspective.
Seminars range from “A Global History of American Food” and “South African Literature Before, During and After Apartheid” to “Self, Schooling and the Social Order” which is taught by Aaron Stoller, associate director of the UHP.
According to Veale, the limitations in the class size of the UHP stems from the inherently small size of the Honors seminars. Most of the courses, especially for the eight sections of the introductory Honors 202 courses which most freshmen take, are contracted out, which means faculty members are paid by the program to teach a seminar in order to compensate for their lost teaching time in their own department.
The UHP Academy is a program that allows students, under the guidance of a faculty mentor and the advising of a UHP professional staff member, to conduct research about a particular topic and teach a one-credit hour course.
Because of the addition of the UHPA courses, there is some pressure from the program to hire out other faculty members while simultaneously developing the students’ capacity for knowledge generation, Veale said.
The UHPA seminars are about specialized topics that the students are interested in teaching about, such as next semester’s course titled “Blood Sweat and Tears: Modern Genocide and Prevention,” which will be taught by Isaac Warren, a freshman in engineering, in the fall.
Retention of students in the UHP has been increasing over time, according to Veale. Dwayne Barnes, an administrative support specialist for the UHP, said the primary factor in attrition is a fall in GPA. Once a student drops below the GPA requirement of 3.25, they are placed on academic probation. This probation allows the students the flexibility to both stay in the program and work toward improving their grades, according to Barnes.
The UHP administration uses several other tools in order to retain students from year to year.
“The Honors Village is vital in UHP retention due to so much community involvement,” Barnes said.
The administration of the UHP uses semester surveys to determine living and academic situations of the program’s participants.