University of Nebraska Kearney

Honors Program Assessment Plan

Direct Measures

Cumulative GPAs/Retention Rates/Graduation Rates

Statistical data on cumulative grade point averages of graduating seniors will be measured every semester.  Future reports will also include the cumulative GPAs of incoming freshmen as well as the entirety of the Honors Program participants. Data on retention rates from freshmen cohorts to graduating seniors will also be part of the Assessment Plan, as will graduation rates from the same comparative cohorts. These data will be compared with cumulative GPAs, retention rates, and graduations rates of UNK as a whole, of non-Honors students.

Senior Study/Capstone Course

Upon completion of 15 credit hours of Honors general studies courses, Honors students complete 9 hours of “Honors Options” in their respective majors in which an Honors project is developed within the context of a required 300-400 level course.  Generally students will opt for 1-2 H-Options in the junior semesters, and complete the final H-Option, the Senior Study, as a senior.

Students work side-by-side with a professor in a mentoring situation to complete the Honors level work and through this mentoring gain much more knowledge of his or her discipline.

Collaboration to determine what type of research and/or projects will take place within the context of the course is between the faculty mentors and the Honors students.  The purpose is to provide Honors students with the opportunities to explore particular topics in more depth within their respective disciplines, and to foster scholarly mentoring relationships with faculty in those disciplines.

The third and final Honors Option course, the Senior Study or Capstone Course, is designed to allow Honors students to call upon their collective knowledge gained throughout their University careers and bring this knowledge together in the form of a capstone project/research paper/portfolio to be archived in the Honors Senior Study Archive and Library.

The Director and Associate Director of the Honors Program, in conjunction with the Honors Advisory Council (comprised of 2 representatives of each college, 1 member of the Honors Student Advisory Board, the Faculty Liaison for the VCAASL and the Director of Admissions as ex officio members, as well as the two Directors of the Honors Program) will evaluate a random sampling of Senior Studies each semester.  To determine outcomes of the objectives of the Senior Studies, the general rubric of said objectives will be applied to each Senior Study.

Indirect Measure

Surveys: Graduating Seniors and Alumni

To ascertain student perspectives on the efficacy of the Honors Programs basic academic objectives, especially as this pertains to the Senior Study or Capstone course, these surveys are conducted for every graduation class of each fall, and spring/summer terms.  They will continue to be a part of an exit interview process each of the terms listed above.  Alumni surveys will be conducted every 3 years.

Previous Plan, Replaced Fall 2007