Talks fluid at UA on Honors College

Ideal enrollment part of equation

FAYETTEVILLE — A fall dip in enrollment in the Honors College at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville coincides with internal discussions about that college’s unique role on the rapidly growing campus and about what the ideal enrollment should be for the college.

“I don’t have a fixed number,” said Provost Sharon Gaber, the university’s top academic officer. “And, in part, that is something that we are talking with the Honors College about.”

The college recently tapped its donation funds to provide bigger scholarships and more programming as it competes with other schools to attract the best and brightest students.

However, the discussions about the college’s future may be just talk for now because some of the main participants have left or are leaving the university for other jobs and their successors will get a say.

In July, UA announced horticulture professor Curt Rom as interim dean, pending a national search to replace the retiring Bob McMath.

Three finalists visited the campus in the fall, but Gaber said in January that the dean search would be extended and opened to new candidates. One longtime faculty member, history professor Lynda Coon, is now considered a finalist.

The dean search now coincides with efforts to find UA’s next top administrator after Chancellor G. David Gearhart announced in January his plans to retire on July 31. Along with those two searches, Gaber also could be leaving UA. She is a finalist for the presidency of the University of Toledo.

The new leaders will oversee an Honors College that last fall enrolled 892 freshmen, its largest class ever.

Gaber said the Honors College “really is a jewel in the crown of the university.”

Open to students in all academic disciplines, the Honors College has grown at almost the same rate as the overall campus, which ranks seventh in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s most recent list of the fastest-growing public research universities. About 13 percent of all UA undergraduates now are members of the Honors College.

UA officials said they have no plans to change

Honors College requirements for incoming freshmen, who each must have at least a 3.5 grade-point average in high school and a 28 on the ACT college entrance exam. Students interested in enrolling in the Walton College of Business must have 3.75 gradepoint averages or better.

While freshman Honors College enrollment has gone up, the overall enrollment dipped in the fall for only the second time since the college was formed in 2002.

Enrollment dropped to 2,853 students, compared with 2,903 a year earlier.

Gaber called the decrease a result of “cleaning up data,” as departments became more proactive in finding students who were not fulfilling Honors College requirements.

“Our numbers now reflect the number of students who really are serious and want to complete the honors program,” Honors College Associate Dean Carol Gattis said.

Gattis explained that the new focus on students committed to the program is tied to Honors College requirements that they write a thesis or complete a similar project while working closely with a faculty adviser.

“It’s really about making sure we have faculty lined up,” she said.

In recent years, the growth of the program has coincided with infusions of funding into the Honors College, much of it from endowments.

“As the student body has gone up, our endowments have gone up,” Gattis said.

The Honors College kicked off with a bang in 2002, after UA announced a record-breaking $300 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation. About twothirds of the gift went to support the new Honors College, which had an initial freshman class of 491 students.

Among recent upgrades, UA opened new honors housing in 2013, as well as on-campus lounges and study areas for honors students.

The university also recently announced an increase in the amounts of some of its most competitive scholarships.

Last year, UA announced 69 incoming freshmen Honors College fellowships, each valued at $50,000 — though beginning this fall, fellowship awards will be raised to $70,000.

“We were recognizing that some of our fellowships are lower than peers’,” Gaber said, describing the increase in awards as part of the university “attempting to remain very competitive” in attracting top students.

The Honors College also has boosted the total travel grants awarded to students.

“We have been able to keep pace with the growth, and I expect we can keep pace with even more growth,” Gattis said.

“Is there a point at which we won’t be able to keep pace? I’m sure there is at some point. But we don’t see that point right now or within the next couple of years,” she added.

A MONEY DIFFERENCE

“The Walton endowment provided so much money for fellowships, it brought in a great number of high-ability, smart, articulate students” even before the creation of the Honors College, said Sidney Burris, director of UA’s J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences Honors Program and an honors department leader.

Money made a big difference to Nathan Scheperle, who arrived at UA from Ozark, Mo.

“They pay for all my school and give out the most full rides of any state college that I know of around here,” Scheperle said.

Among all Honors College freshmen entering last fall, about 39 percent were out-of-state residents. For the entire freshman class, out-ofstate students made up roughly 45 percent of the total of 4,518 first-time, full-time degree-seeking freshmen.

But Gaber said recruitment of top students begins with Arkansans.

“To be able to keep the best and brightest in the state, that’s part of the goal of the Honors College,” Gaber said.

Gattis said the Honors College “would always prefer to have more in-state students.” However, she added that “we also need our Arkansas students to interact with students from other places.”

Honors College students who are nearing graduation described how the experience helped them — though in some cases, not enough — while studying at a large university.

“When you’re part of the Honors College, it was like you immediately had family,” said Matthew Fey, who is studying international relations, European studies and Spanish.

He said his enrollment in the college “definitely made it more likely that I was going to study abroad,” describing a trip to Spain paid for partially through a grant from UA.

Scheperle said that while he enjoyed some honors classes, “for me, personally, I feel they have done a poor job with career counseling and career development.”

A math and economics major with a minor in physics, Scheperle said he plans to go to graduate school and study finance.

Kelly Williams, an Honors College fellow and nursing student set to graduate this spring, said she served with a group of students who met last fall with Honors College dean candidates.

“I really think it says a lot about the university that they don’t want to settle,” Williams said, adding that she would like to see more interdisciplinary honors classes.

Fey said he hasn’t noticed growth within the Honors College as much as growth in the university as a whole.

“I definitely don’t think growth is a bad thing. We’re changing and moving toward the future,” said Fey, who arrived at UA from McKinney, Texas, but whose parents now live in Arkansas.