The Benefits of Honors Education for All College Students (Forum on "the Institutional Impact of Honors") (Report)

As we learn from Scott Carnicom's informative and thoughtful essay "Honors Education: Innovation or Conservation," the lead essay for this Forum, honors education, the brain child of Frank Aydelotte, was designed to "create a more individualized educational experience for gifted students that focused on the creation of knowledge more than its mere reproduction." From the beginning, honors programs and later colleges have drawn and continue to draw students we often identify as "the best and the brightest," and traditional measures bear out such a designation (for a general overview of honors students across and within colleges and universities, see Achterberg and Kaczvinsky; cf. Freyman for a prescriptive view of honors students). While we may agree that honors colleges and programs bring in gifted students, do these students alone deserve an education focused on the creation of knowledge rather than its reproduction? Shouldn't we aspire to this goal for all university and college students? If so, what role might honors colleges and programs have in furthering this lofty aim? Bell argues in general terms for the intervention of honors in undergraduate education, especially at large research institutions (cf. Braid [2009], who takes this idea further and offers suggestions about how honors education could be employed in K-12). In this essay, I would like to point out ways that honors already benefits all students and how it might expand its outreach to the rest of campus. HONORS STUDENTS