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Topics and resources from honors education are used to teach argumentation in writing composition. The author discusses efficacies for increasing student awareness of, and reflection on, issues in honors education while engaging first-year students in honors issues that directly affect their lives.

A recent (2020) report by the Modern Language Association addresses the ethical treatment of graduate students in the humanities, and the author considers this in the context of honors students and faculty. Lamenting missed opportunities for in-person group presentations, student-led Socratic circles, and final individual presentations during the coronavirus pandemic, the author reflects on ways of experiencing joy and practicing compassion in teaching. Students and faculty mutually benefit from exploring and honoring each other's humanity.

Postsecondary honors educators are adept at identifying problems and proposing solutions in honors education, but they may not disseminate their solutions effectively. This essay argues that honors administrators should familiarize themselves with the professional and scholarly resources that NCHC institutional membership affords, and then they should share what they have learned with honors teaching faculty. Rather than simply serving as advisors on administrative and programmatic issues, honors faculty also need the tools and opportunities to be effective honors problem solvers for day-to-day pedagogical issues.

In the field of composition studies, a core pedagogical objective is to familiarize students with types of argumentation strategies, such as causation, evaluation, narration, rebuttal, and definition. Introducing definition arguments in their textbook "Good Reasons: Researching and Writing Effective Arguments", Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer state that "[d]efinition arguments set out criteria and then argue whatever is being defined meets or does not meet those criteria. Rarely do you get far into an argument without having to define something" (97). They identify three categories of definition--formal, operational, and by example--and then apply these to sample documents. For my honors composition course, I begin class discussion of definitional argument by writing this thesis statement on the board: "Honors programs are not a good fit for gifted students." Initially, students are resistant: "Aren't gifted and honors the same thing?" "Don't all gifted students go into honors anyway?" I explain that we must examine definitions for gifted and honors to identify the similarities and differences, not only in intellectual ability but in other areas such as motivation and emotionality. I also admit to them that the idea that gifted students might not naturally fit into honors had not occurred to me until I attended Anne N. Rinn's 2004 NCHC conference session, "Should Gifted Students Join an Honors Program?" Rinn acknowledged a lack of empirical research supporting the premise that gifted students fit well into honors programs and used her dissertation as an occasion to contribute needed empirical support in favor of their joining.

A new admissions crisis has begun to emerge in the honors community. In an increasing number of states, legislatures are mandating uniform minimum AP and dual enrollment credits that public colleges and universities must accept, and consequently the honors students that have been admitted based in part on their willingness to take on challenging coursework such as AP classes are now struggling to find enough liberal-arts based honors electives to complete an honors program. Neither parents nor state legislatures want to continue paying the ever escalating costs of higher education, so fast-tracking students through a bachelor's degree program in three years has become particularly attractive. Reports of freshmen coming into public institutions with 30-60 credit hours are becoming more frequent. While parents and state governments are happily saving those tuition dollars, the traditional liberal arts foundation of honors education is being gutted. Author Annemarie Guzy reasons that in the present climate, honors educators no longer have the luxury of continuing a "more vs. different" debate regarding whether honors courses should be differentiated from regular courses through more assignments (frequently the default setting in honors contracts) or through qualitatively different work. She maintains that if students have already covered the material in high school, and the state mandates that they must be awarded college credit for it, then calling course work "honors" by offering more of the same-more papers, more tests, more books, more labs -is indeed a waste of time and tuition. Guzy calls for educators to challenge themselves to teach something substantively different because innovation is the hallmark of honors education.

This bibliography is intended to offer future honors composition researchers a comprehensive list of honors composition publications and disciplinary presentations to date. Guzy's intent was to provide a starting place for future researchers to begin their literature reviews and to decide which research agenda to pursue. Guzy focused on postsecondary education and did not include works on K-12 gifted and honors students. To facilitate readability, Guzy categorized items by publication type, listed them in chronological order, and provided commentary on each venue rather than annotations on individual entries

Annmarie Guzy opens this article by saying that, as a professor of composition and technical communication, she has found "dipping into other fields" an integral part of her job. In a traditional English department, what she does is considered service teaching, providing a service to other departments and colleges rather than teaching English majors. Although she occasionally sees an English major on her roster, she spends the majority of her time working with students from pre-professional programs such as engineering, computer science, biomedical sciences, health care management and informatics, graphic design, and secondary education. Her work with so many students, honors and non-honors alike, from a range of professional disciplines, provides a unique perspective on the interdisciplinarity of college studies. Guzy requires her students to make the transition from academic writing for a grade to workplace writing in which they need to convey field specific information effectively so that a real audience can make a decision or take a course of action. Similarly, her honors freshmen are building writing skills necessary to navigate writing and research projects in any discipline. When Guzy's students can successfully explain their discipline- specific work to classmates from different majors, when they have learned enough to have thoughtful discussions about topics from everyone's majors, then Guzy has achieved one of her major pedagogical objectives. Honors administrators and faculty consider students to be the leaders of the future in their disciplines of choice and strive to give them the tools to be responsible, ethical citizens. Guzy argues that fast-tracking students past their humanities courses deprives students of opportunities to develop their critical thinking and writing skills beyond those of an eighteen-year-old high school senior before they have to complete advanced projects in their majors. It also limits them to trade-school coursework in increasingly narrow disciplinary specializations without giving them valuable chances to discover the interdisciplinary connection--the human connection--among all majors.

Annmarie Guzy teaches honors composition at the University of South Alabama. This essay discusses her observation that students who took her class were more likely to complete the honors program, which led to her wondering what elements of her course might give students an edge in honors program completion. As an English professor with training in communications, rhetoric, and technical writing, she focuses assignments on discipline-specific research and argumentation from the students' majors. This insight into modes of communication in their chosen fields might aid students in constructing and writing more successful undergraduate research and capstone projects. She focuses on issues in honors education to demonstrate different types of argumentative strategies, and she supplements textbook chapters with appropriate articles from "Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council" and "Honors in Practice." Perhaps this awareness increases students' engagement in honors education and their commitment to the program. What she does in her class helps her honors students to graduate, but their graduation rate does not dictate what she does in her class.

High school students on the college prep track are going to greater lengths to become competitive applicants for honors programs and their attendant scholarships, especially in the face of escalating college costs. All stakeholders in honors education--students, families, teachers, and administrators--face steeper financial challenges than they did ten years ago. Characteristics of honors education that are valued at both the high school and college levels, such as small class size and independent research, are time consuming and expensive to provide and to assess. The systemization of high school honors education combined with the high cost of providing honors programs at the college level has essentially paved the road for for-profit organizations, such as American Honors, to become more prevalent at the college level, which is something the author, a college professor at the University of South Alabama, adamantly opposes. This article discusses how students, high schools, and administrators are paying the price in more way than one due to the current standardized nature of honors education.

Annmarie Guzy, an expert with almost three decades of experience in post-secondary honors education, responds to Jerry Herron's essay, "Notes toward an Excellent Marxist-Elitist Honors Admissions Policy," which argues that "a well-conceived admissions policy tells us much more than whom to recruit; it becomes the basis for a quantitative defense of what we do with data and puts a convincing dollar value on the good evangel of excellence." Annmarie Guzy is skeptical about administration's increasing overreliance upon quantitative data to the exclusion of all other assessment measures. In this essay, she addresses whether numbers effect authentic, productive change in institutional and educational practices, or if instruments are merely rotated or existing ones revised until the desired results are achieved. Administration may be satisfied with attractive numbers that they can sell to their constituencies, but educators with their boots on the ground in the classrooms need something a little more substantial to guide honors students to successful program completion. As a faculty member, the author sees the results as simply a way to satisfy administration rather than as any true reflection of instructional quality or student performance. [For "Notes toward an Excellent Marxist-Elitist Honors Admissions Policy," see EJ1081987.]

In "Costs and Benefits in the Economy of Honors," Richard Badenhausen identifies several pressing issues regarding the economic status of honors in the current financial climate of higher education, including the role of faculty in addressing those issues. In her response to Badenhausen's essay, Annmarie Guzy, a faculty member at the University of South Alabama, argues that honors program directors should take the initiative in ensuring that honors faculty are informed about and invited to participate in discussions concerning the honors program's financial status. By opening these lines of communication, honors directors can also become more intimately aware of the increasingly difficult professional decisions that faculty have to make as a result of the "new normal" economy. In this essay, the author suggests that honors directors should consider allocating some funds to enhance faculty knowledge about the economics of honors in the following ways: (1) provide compensation for honors courses and projects; (2) promote National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) resources; (3) subsidize travel to honors conferences and workshops; and (4) share the financial information that the honors directors think the faculty members should know. While many of the recommendations cost money, the author suggests that the investment will enable faculty members to be more effective advocates of and participants in honors education. [For "Costs and Benefits in the Economy of Honors," see EJ1082243.]

Melbye, David. Irony in The Twilight Zone: How the Series Critiqued Postwar American Culture. Rowman & Littlefield, 2016. 225 pp. Hardback. ISBN 978-1-4422- 6031-3. $85.00. As noted in his introduction, [...]

The author reflects on the role of honors faculty in effectively responding to short- and long-term administrative change, discussing the value of resistance to deleterious administrative decisions and offering advice for successfully navigating cyclical administrative shifts in honors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A midterm assignment affords honors students from all disciplines the opportunity for creative expression. Poster subjects cover a range of writers in the genre of horror, and the event showcases students' artistic abilities while promoting interdisciplinary socialization and a sense of community in honors. A sample list of authors and examples of document design are included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the National Collegiate Honors Council's (2024) collection of essays honoring the life and work of Dr. Ada Long (1945-2024), the author reflects on the personal and professional impact she has made in the honors experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Topics and resources from honors education are used to teach argumentation in writing composition. The author discusses efficacies for increasing student awareness of, and reflection on, issues in honors education while engaging first-year students in honors issues that directly affect their lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A recent (2020) report by the Modern Language Association addresses the ethical treatment of graduate students in the humanities, and the author considers this in the context of honors students and faculty. Lamenting missed opportunities for in-person group presentations, student-led Socratic circles, and final individual presentations during the coronavirus pandemic, the author reflects on ways of experiencing joy and practicing compassion in teaching. Students and faculty mutually benefit from exploring and honoring each other's humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postsecondary honors educators are adept at identifying problems and proposing solutions in honors education, but they may not disseminate their solutions effectively. This essay argues that honors administrators should familiarize themselves with the professional and scholarly resources that NCHC institutional membership affords, and then they should share what they have learned with honors teaching faculty. Rather than simply serving as advisors on administrative and programmatic issues, honors faculty also need the tools and opportunities to be effective honors problem solvers for day-to-day pedagogical issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on emerging crisis in honors education. Topics covered include honors courses, general education requirements, and advanced placement. Also mentioned are dual enrollment, legislative movement toward reducing tuition costs through fast-tracking, and the possibility of reducing or eliminating required honors courses.

The article discusses the coverage of research in honors education in the "Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (JNCHC) from 2004 to 2015. Topics covered include the three main areas of inquiry for honors composition, namely, programmatic issues, pedagogical approaches and student performance, the writing ability of honors students compared with general students, and the ability of honors students to construct effective academic arguments based on a study.

An essay is presented of compassion, sympathy and kindness within academic humanities. The author reflects her experience to warn her students not to solely focus on facts to the exclusion of responsible appeals to ethics and emotion. It explores how fast-tracking students who past their humanities courses deprives them of developing their writing and thinking skills before they have to complete advanced projects in their majors.

An essay is presented on rubrics and templates of outcome assessment in contemporary higher education in the U.S. The author describes the usefulness of data collection, citing as an example the graduation rates of her former honors composition students at the University of South Alabama. However, the author objects the use of such data to order teaching methods or standardize course content.

The article presents the author's views on the reason behind decision of students of leaving honors courses. According to him, increasing cost of honors courses is the major reason behind withdrawal of students. He analyzes college fees paid by them for entrance exams and other costs of the college. Authors further debates that whether administration or students are paying in the academic services.

An essay is presented which discusses the measurement of student success in the University of South Alabama's honors courses. It is critical on the overreliance of some school administrations on data-driven assessments, such as ACT Assessment scores and grade point average (GPA), for the prediction of student success. It notes the significant contribution of the university's decreased honors program requirements to the percentage of students who completed the course.

The article discusses ways for effective faculty for honors program in higher education in the U.S. According to the author, honors program directors should take the initiative in ensuring that honors faculty are informed about and invited to participate in discussions concerning the program's financial status. The author suggests that directors and deans need to respond by compensating honors faculty as generously as possible, supporting their membership in National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), and subsidizing faculty development.

An essay providing a personal narrative that exemplifies the sentiment of stepping up the social ladder towards the middle-class careers and values is presented. It highlights the author's beliefs that honors programs do offer an educational environment that is challenging for academic-related talents and in motivating students. It explores the author's learning acquired from painful trial and mistake on the right time to speak, to keep mouth shut and ways to challenge authority.