Who Owns Honors?

Abstract

The long-term shift in undergraduate enrollment away from traditional humanities disciplines toward vocationally oriented majors poses a unique set of challenges for honors. While some have responded by emphasizing humanities’ centrality to honors education, this essay argues the imperative that honors practitioners and administrators improve outreach efforts to preprofessional honors programs. After considering why fields outside the liberal arts and sciences are underrepresented in the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), the author outlines a number of strategies for soliciting greater participation from academic leaders and faculty in these disciplines as well as improving the experience of careerfocused majors in liberal arts honors programs