Honors Citizenship:

Creating an Engaged Learning Community

Jim Knauer, Honors Director
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania

A hallmark of the Honors Program at Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania is the level of student involvement in program governance.  Many of our graduating honors students can look back on their time in honors as an internship complementing their academic work.  This report focuses on these co-curricular dimensions of the program.  While these activities are designed with the primary purpose of supporting academic success, they have become an independently valuable aspect of the program.  Our success in nurturing honors citizenship has contributed to deeper engagement in the learning process for our students.

I believe it is accurate to say that while students may enter the program with the idea that it is a service provided for them, by the time they return for their second year they realize that the program is something they do for themselves, for each other and for the university.  They have become partners in an engaged learning community rather than consumers of special perquisites and opportunities.  Students, faculty and staff have built this community over a period of 15 years.  Additions and refurbishing are ongoing.  Four building blocks provide the foundation.

Building Blocks for an Engaged Learning Community

First, we have instituted a practice of deliberative discourse about things that matter.  The model for this discourse will be familiar to participants in National Issues Forums at NENCHC and NCHC conferences.  This way of discussing issues has as its objective learning from each other so that we come away from our discussion with an enhanced understanding of the issue, of the variety of perspectives on it, of our own views and of our shared concerns.  Deliberation is unlike debate.  We are trying to learn from each other, not win a contest.  Nor are we striving for consensus.  Our goal is a shared understanding of where and why we agree and disagree, which will give us a clearer understanding of the tradeoffs involved in any course of action.  On issues of program governance, this foundation of shared learning helps us make better decisions and implement them more effectively. 

The centerpiece of our deliberative discourse is an issue of our own framing, “What Kind of General Education Should All College Students Have?”  Students are exposed to the issue for the first time during new student orientation.  This forum initiates deep personal and shared reflection on the purposes of a college education.  We also hold forums each semester on such public issues as racial and ethnic relations, alcohol abuse, and euthanasia.  These forums help develop the practice of shared reflection on complex matters of general interest.  Many of our students progress to moderator training which gives them a much richer understanding of the nature and potential of deliberative discourse as well as very practical skills for making group discussions more productive.  In sum, we seek to create a habit of deliberative talk that will foster student engagement in and deep reflection on both their own education and public issues of significance. 

Second, we have an honors community service requirement of two hours per week that applies to all students in the program.  The requirement is for service to the honors community rather than community service in the more usual sense.  Honors provides students with a richly enhanced education; it is appropriate that they repay the program by contributing to its growth and success.  In the first semester the requirement is met by participating in required freshman discussion groups and lunch discussion.  In later years it may be met in a wide variety of ways, including activities that benefit the university and the broader community.

Third, we have developed a systematic approach to educational, citizenship and leadership development for honors students.  A ladder of responsibility supports our high level of student engagement in governance:  Beginning in the first semester, students are involved in governance deliberations and encouraged to move up the ladder.

We routinely invite students to propose new co-curricular activities, to participate in governance deliberations, and to train for various leadership positions.  One particularly important rule for program growth and continuity is to identify replacements a semester in advance for students leaving any of approximately seven key leadership positions.  This provides ample time for training alongside the departing leader and helps leaders meet one of our governance goals, leaving the program stronger than they found it.

Fourth, we insist on a genuine sharing of authority and responsibility with students.  Of course the Honors Program is not a democracy.  The Director reports to the Provost, and the Honors Committee decides important issues.  Subject to this supervision, the director has the authority to act without consulting students.  In practice, however, students are routinely involved in governance decisions. 

Some numbers may help convey a sense of the level of student involvement and responsibility.  Each year we enroll 85-90 freshmen in two honors tracks.  University Honors (maximum 40 students) is a four-year program although it can be completed in three years.  First Year Excellence (maximum 50 students) is a one-year track leading to automatic acceptance to University Honors for those earning a 3.2 gpa.  For fall 2002 our anticipated enrollment is 86 freshman, 33 sophomores, 20 juniors and 25 seniors, for a total of 164 students.  All of these students will be involved for the required minimum of two hours per week.  Many will be paid to work additional hours.  Twenty-eight of them will be group or team leaders.  Another 22 will have specific areas of responsibility for program work, either staffing the office or working on a special team (Admissions, Newsletter, Web, Public Issues Forums).  This means that a total of 50 students (30% of those enrolled) will assume specific governance responsibilities.

The relatively high attrition rate from first to second year is partly explained by the community service requirement.  Of the approximately 50 students who do not continue in honors, about 35 fail to meet the gpa requirement while another 15 fail to contribute the required two hours per week.  In spite of this high attrition in honors, we have averaged a university second-year return rate of 95% for University Honors freshmen, a number I make sure to publicize widely.  I believe the supportive honors community contributes significantly to university retention even for those students who don’t stay attached to honors.

Engaged Learning Community At Work

An example of how we made a major decision will illustrate the impact of student engagement.  For two years we discussed revising our system of requirements for honors credentials, at that time awarded in three categories.  Although hardly expeditious, the process culminated in a new set of requirements that has received enthusiastic and virtually universal approval.  The process involved several discussions in each of three forums, Student Assemblies, Program Coordinating Committee and Honors Committee.  Several different proposals were considered at one point or another.  Our habit of deliberative discourse helped us in all of these discussions, as we probed for underlying concerns and ultimate purposes and for the many tradeoffs involved in any policy choice. 

By directly involving at least 75% of honors students at one point or another the final decision was taken in light of a very wide range of perspectives, and its implementation has been strengthened by a high degree of understanding and support.  The result has been far superior to anything that would have come out of a more traditional committee process.  Nor would a survey of students have produced anything like the widely shared and nuanced understanding of the issue that resulted from our extensive deliberations.

More routine matters are handled in a similar fashion.  For example, each spring one of the student associate directors invites students to join a freshman orientation task force.  All first-year students are polled electronically about their own orientation experiences and the topic is discussed in freshman discussion groups.  The task force then reviews all aspects of the orientation process:

Plans for the next year are reviewed by the Program Coordinating Committee and Honors Staff and implemented by the student associate director in charge.

One final example would be the occasional receipt of communications from students, ex-students, faculty or others expressing dissatisfaction with some aspect of the program.  Our habit of deliberation encourages us to take the concerns seriously and to probe for a full understanding of them.  In the end we may decide that no action is necessary; often we consider action to address the concern.  A recent critical letter from an emeritus faculty member led to discussions at a weekly staff meeting, Program Coordinating Committee and Honors Committee.  As a result a new honors publication is under consideration. 

Deliberative Citizenship and Engaged Learning

The National Issues Forum model of deliberative democracy has proven its value to a political democracy in communities across the country.  But strong democracy requires much more than occasional community forums.  It requires a habit of deliberative discourse about things that matter.  Schools at all levels have a critical role to play in the nurturing of these democratic capacities and character.  While schools themselves cannot be democracies, they can and should instill the habit of deliberative discourse on which democracy ultimately depends. 

Our experience in honors reveals the deep connection between strong democracy as a political practice and an engaged learning community.  Building the practices of democracy into an academic program serves traditional educational ends.  The habit of deliberative discourse stimulates deep reflection on the purposes of education.  It teaches the value of conversing to learn and the personal responsibility for self-monitoring of learning.  It helps students enter into a partnership with their teachers and vice versa.  (The accompanying reflections by our student associate directors for 2001-2002, Melissa Davis and Kim Reese, provide two student perspectives on honors citizenship.)