9-14-99
COLUMBUS -- This autumn marks The Ohio State University's first year of an expansion of honors-related programming that eventually will reach a significantly larger population of students through new, so-called "Scholars" initiatives.
The pilot Scholars program participants were to arrive on campus Sept. 15. The 52 freshmen are Ohio State's first Mount Scholars, a group of high-achieving students interested in leadership, who will live together in Halloran House and share courses and out-of-class service projects for at least two years.
Last spring, the university's Honors Center was renamed the University Honors & Scholars Center in a move signaling the administrative reorganization behind the expansion to embrace the Mount Scholars and other programs in development.
Under the restructuring, a new academic position of associate provost for honors and scholars curriculum has been created to oversee development and expansion of specialized curricula. Daniel Farrell, professor and chair of the Department of Philosophy, has been appointed to this post in an interim capacity through June 2000.
Farrell will work with colleges and departments to enhance academic opportunities for Honors students and to develop Scholars programs. A member of the Honors faculty, Farrell also has contributed to proposals for other Scholars programs designed to cluster students with similar academic and creative interests.
"The central challenge for me as interim associate provost will be to enhance the opportunities and protect the academic integrity and fiscal autonomy of our Honors program while we increase our services to other populations of students, including the new Scholars programs," Farrell said.
As part of the restructuring, Mabel Freeman, who last year served as interim director of Honors, has been named director of the University Honors & Scholars Center, overseeing the center and focusing on recruitment of students and provision of co-curricular programming in support of academic programming. Freeman has been on staff at the Honors Center since its establishment in 1985.
"Basically, we're taking everything we've been doing for students at the former Kuhn Honors House and extending it to more students," Freeman said. "We want to help develop more co-curricular programs that support our academic programs and enhance learning as much as possible."
Freeman and Farrell will work closely together, and both will report to Martha Garland, vice provost and dean of undergraduate studies.
The Honors program will continue to function as the arm of the university that attracts high-achieving students and offers them a personal, tailored academic experience within the larger university environment. About 4,000 honors students are enrolled in the smaller classes and more challenging curriculum in 180 Honors courses across the university.
"It has become clear that the university needs to extend the effectiveness of the Honors idea," Garland said. "We do a good job of creating an environment in which Honors students can thrive. But there are other, very talented students at Ohio State, and they deserve special attention, too.
"We have young people enrolled here who already show the potential to become national or international leaders, to provide significant community service, to make a profound difference in artistic and other arenas. It's high time we nurture those kinds of talents in a learning community, as well."
The University Honors & Scholars Center will work with other campus departments to recruit and serve non-honors students who are high academic achievers and who come to Ohio State because of a special talent or program offered by the university. Many will be university scholarship recipients and may be students who wish to live in special living-learning programs.
The Mount Leadership Society is the first of at least four Scholars programs expected to be active next academic year. Mount Scholars have been selected on the basis of a strong high school academic record and demonstrated commitment to leadership -- ranging from weekly visitation with elderly neighbors to rising through the ranks of teen employment to chairing an ethics society in high school.
During autumn quarter, Mount Scholars will take a freshman composition course together and a specialized survey course taught by Garland and David Williams II, vice president for student and urban/community affairs. During winter quarter, they'll be clustered in a statistics class taught in the context of using the course subject to understand and solve community problems. Mount Scholars also are assigned student development mentors, most of whom are high-profile university staff members who share their interests. The sophomore year will revolve around selecting and completing a service-learning project.
"The whole program is centered around the notion that students will learn better in a community," said Kathy Cleveland Bull, director of training and organizational development for Housing, Food Services and Event Centers, and interim director of the Mount Leadership Society.
Program creators plan to expand the Mount Leadership Society to include about 300 new freshmen within five years. It will serve as a model for other specialized Scholars programs that will be developed. Under discussion at the present time are various programs in the arts and sciences, as well as programs for talented students interested in the health sciences and in other professional opportunities.
"A survey of incoming Mount Scholars shows their first concern is learning leadership skills. Second to that is interacting with students who have similar goals," Cleveland Bull said. "These programs create ‘neighborhoods' in which students can find their community niche. We're trying to increase the number of neighborhoods in this big city we call Ohio State."
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Contact: Martha Garland, Academic Affairs, (614) 292-5881
Daniel Farrell, Philosophy, (614) 292-2510 Mabel Freeman, Honors & Scholars Center, (614) 292-3135 Kathy Cleveland Bull, Mount Scholars, (614) 292-5927