The Honors Program

Context The College or Arts and Sciences has committed to doubling the size of the Honors Program and has raised private and state matching funds to create fifteen new faculty positions that will support that effort. As the program grows, its leaders must have a plan for maintaining existing academic strengths and leveraging new opportunities for excellence in undergraduate education.

Focus The planning process is designed to answer three closely related questions: How can the Honors Program most effectively strengthen Carolina's ability to attract and retain the best in-state and out-of-state undergraduate students? How can the Honors Program provide leadership in developing world-class learning opportunities, on campus and abroad, for those students and others who aspire to honors-level work? And what resources, human and financial, will be required to meet those objectives?

Background The Honors Program undertook its last comprehensive strategic planning process in 1996. Much has changed since then, including the establishment of the Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, the growth of honors study abroad and the Burch Field Research Seminars, the addition of the honors contract and junior colloquium for upper-level students, and the development of the Cobb Connected Learning program (in collaboration with the Department of Housing and Residential Education) and other co-curricular activities. Innovation has also occurred in the general curriculum and in the realm of merit scholarships and student aid. These developments include the First Year Seminars Program, the Office for Undergraduate Research, the new undergraduate curriculum, the minor in entrepreneurship, the Carolina Covenant, growth in the Morehead-Cain Scholars program, establishment of the Robertson Scholars program, and new approaches to teaching and learning made possible by advances in communications and instructional technologies. The Honors Program’s strategic plan must take account of these assets and identify ways that old partnerships might be strengthened and new collaborations forged.

Trends The Honors Program's strategic plan must also respond to important trends that are (re)shaping undergraduate education at Carolina and other leading public institutions. These trends include enrollment growth, increasing ethnic and racial diversity, heightened competition for the best students nationwide, rapid globalization in all aspects of life, accelerating technological innovation, and ongoing efforts to link teaching and research at Carolina to the needs of the people of North Carolina, the nation, and the world.

Process The planning process will be inclusive and consultative. It will involve students, faculty, and key campus administrators. It will seek advice from donors and alumni who have supported the program in the past and anticipate future giving. It will benchmark the Honors Program against its counterparts at peer institutions. And it will assess the trends and factors that shape students' college choices and that will define a world-class educational experience in the years to come.

Product The planning process will produce a strategic ten-year vision for the Honors Program and a clear set of priorities to guide curriculum development, student recruiting, communications and branding, co-curricular programming, and fundraising.

Schedule Planning efforts will focus on intensive consultation, data gathering, and assessment from late January through April 2009, with the goal of presenting a draft report to the program's faculty, student, and external advisory boards in late April through early May. A final draft of the strategic plan will be delivered no later than June 30, 2009. Implementation of the plan will begin in the 2009-10 academic year.

Leadership James Leloudis, Associate Dean for Honors, will lead the project and convene the stakeholders identified above. Dr. David Kiel, senior consultant for the Institute for the Arts and Humanities' Academic Leadership program since 2001, has been engaged to coordinate the strategic planning process. He led the honors strategic planning effort in 1996 and is one of North Carolina's most experienced strategic planning consultants for public, private, and non-profit organizations.