See the committee report: http://www.washington.edu/about/accreditation/reviews/honors2.pdf
I nearly signed up to go to the UW honors night before I looked into the program, and figure out what was really going on. Sure, if you're kid is high-performing, why not put in a little extra effort and say you graduated with honors? Well I found the study that said among other things:
* Only about 10% of those who apply even get in. It's even harder to get into than Stanford
* Fewer than half finish all the requirements
* It needs a LOT more funding to increase the number of students, and the support of the students who are already in
* Students find it hard to meet all the normal requirements (as if a UW engineering diploma didn't already tell you you're a
glutton for punishment) plus the honors requirements
* Some departments didn't "do a very good job" of workign in honors requirements with their own.
I smelled a lot like IB which is signing up to go to school "in hell" like the 300 warriors. IB is supposed to be for everybody, just like WASL and OBE, but actually only works as a program for elites, and is treated as an elite programby college admissions, but that's another topic.
So my conclusion is it worth piling on a bunch of extra work and slogging through hell so that your diploma gets a little gold star that says "honors"? No thank you.
This is a symptom of that same "higher standard" mania that ed reform suffers from. The idea of instead of mastering basics to 99.99%, you pile on as much stuff that will make your resume look good and make it look like your kids went through as much stress as possible. This is a very, very bad turn compared to when we went through college in the 70s.
highlights:
NOT FUNDED OR ENOUGH FACULTY INVOLVED TO REALLY WORK
The current sporadic involvement of faculty in the Honors community is symptomatic of a program without a firm identity as an independent unit and without enough budgetary resources to ensure stable and continuing faculty involvement
ONLY ADMITS 8% OF APPLICANTS, HARDER TO GET IN THAN STANFORD
The existing program annually serves 200 new students out of an applicant pool of about 2500. The Honors Program is thus forced to refuse access annually to many hundreds of the best-qualified student applicants to the UW. For many of these students who are considering a range of opportunities, being admitted to the Honors Program is a prerequisite for considering the UW at all. When they are refused admission (note: this year, it was harder to gain admission to UW Honors than to Stanford!), they subsequently decline to enter the UW. This is a serious loss to the University as a whole
NO REGULAR FUNDING FOR HONORS COURSES
the program of courses for the Honors Program students could be significantly improved by establishment of systematic offerings in core areas, presented on a regular basis (see section #3). The present underfunding of the program, and its lack of faculty resources, is a part of the root of this issue
Consider exempting Honors students from all general education requirements. With appropriate faculty guidance, Honors students should be able to design their own path to the degree, once enough Honors options are in place.
NOT ATTRACTIVE TO UNDERREPRESENTED STUDENTS (MINORITY)
make special efforts to identify courses in the curriculum, suitable for Honors credit that typically attract underrepresented students.
NEEDS MORE MONEY FOR MORE FACULTY AND ADVISORS
The question remains how to fund the Honors Program in a rational way, both it its present configuration, and in growth mode. A rough formula for thinking about resource implications might be as follows: For every additional 100 incoming Honors students, 4 additional faculty positions and 1 additional adviser are required. This is roughly equivalent to a $400,000 allocation.
NEEDS BIG INCREASE IN BUDGET (DREAM ON)
Fund the Honors Program/College appropriately. We know that the necessary funding cannot appear over night and may well be dependent on a major endowment gift. Nevertheless an increase in the permanent budget must happen in the new biennium.
NEEDS ITS OWN COLLEGE
the UW should work towards creating an Honors College. An Honors College gives the Head of the Honors Program
the standing of an independent Dean who is able to work with, negotiate and if need be arm wrestle as an equal with other Deans.
NOT ENOUGH INCENTIVES TO ATTRACT FACULTY - BEGGING BOWL
there are too few tenured or tenure-track faculty involved in the Honors Program at any level – teaching courses, providing governance and oversight, offering innovative directions. Even to remain at the present size, this problem simply must be addressed. There are two fundamental aspects to the problem: regularizing faculty involvement, and paying for it. At present, it is largely an ad hoc system (a begging bowl system, in more colorful terms): the Honors staff asks either for a gift of teaching (faculty teach as an overload) or offers chairs a graduate student stipend in return for a faculty ember’s commitment. Or a home department receives nothing in exchange for faculty teaching in the Honors Program
There are considerable structural impediments to students who wish to graduate with Honors, and they reflect the state of relations between University Honors and Departmental Honors. This relationship is characterized by an absence of communication, a lack of coordinated planning, inadequate resources both at the University and departmental levels, and obstructionist rules governing the designation of honors at graduation. It should be noted that, under the present system, students cannot graduate with honors unless they complete both University and departmental honors requirements.
The Honors Program has a triple mission: (1) to recruit and admit top students into the Honors Program; (2) to provide a very high quality, interdisciplinary general education, especially in the first two years; and (3) to provide encouragement, advising, and pathways for students to graduate from the UW with Honors. As we discovered, certain elements of this mission are adequately served by the present organization and structure, while others are not.
SENIOR THESIS DIFFICULT TO FIND FACULTY MENTOR OR NOT APPROPRIATE
many College Honors students find the Senior Thesis Requirement difficult to achieve as each student must find a willing and qualified faculty mentor, or the Thesis is not an appropriate format for a culminating project. Students who do not complete an Honors thesis graduate with no accolade of College Honors on their transcripts.
THESIS BOTTLENECK MAJOR FACTOR IN 46% 1-IN-2 ATTRITION RATE FOR HONORS
This bottle neck is a major factor contributing to the 46% attrition rate of students from the program...The completion of lower division honors course work and the Senior Thesis is a good path but currently the ONLY path
HONORS SUPPORT GREAT IN MATHEMATICS, BUT POOR IN SCIENCES
there is excellent participation by some departments (notably mathematics) in the Honors Program but not by others. The sciences are particularly poorly represented.
TOUGH TO MEET COMBINED DEPARTMENT AND HONORS REQUIREMENTS IN YEARS 3 AND 4
In their third and fourth years many Honors students experience difficulty in meeting departmental major requirements and continuing to meet the requirements for the Honors Program. Coordination and cooperation between departments and the Honors Program could relieve most of these problems
ELITE PROGRAM LACKING IN UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITIES
that the Honors Program suffers from the same lack of diversity as the rest of the University, something which should be addressed.
University of Washington
Report of the Honors Program Review Committee
Date of Site Visit: April 28-29, 2005
Date of Report: June 23, 2005
Contents:
Charge and Procedure p. 1
Overview p. 3
Critical Issue One p. 4
Critical Issue Two p. 5
Critical Issue Three p. 8
Critical Issue Four p. 11
Conclusion p. 17
Appendix A: Summary of Recommendations
Charge and Procedure
The Honors Program Review Committee was appointed in February 2005 by Elizabeth L.
Feetham, Acting Dean of the Graduate School, for the purpose of assessing the quality
and health of the Honors Program. This is the first time in its 45 year history that the
Honors Program has had a formal review. It was requested by Honors Program Director,
Professor Shawn Wong.
The members of the committee are:
Sarah Nash Gates, Executive Director and Professor, School of Drama
Enrique Bonus, Associate Professor, American Ethnic Studies
Debra Friedman, Director of Special Projects, Development and Alumni Relations
A.O. Dennis Willows, Professor, Biology
Cheryl Achtenberg, Dean of the Schreyer Honors College, Professor of Nutrition,
Affiliate Professor Information Sciences and Technology and Education Theory
and Policy, Pennsylvania State University.
G. Jennifer Wilson, Assistant Vice Provost and Director of the Honors College,
University of California, Los Angeles
The committee was charged with the task of assessing the academic and administrative
quality of the Honors Program, its role in undergraduate education at the UW and with
providing advice as to how it might be improved. On March 11, 2005 the UW members
of the committee, Bonus, Friedman and Gates, met with Gail L. Dubrow, Associate Dean
of the Graduate School for Academic Programs. UW Committee member A. O. Dennis
Willows was unable to attend. Also in attendance were: Acting Dean of the Graduate
School Elizabeth Feetham, Vice Provost and Dean for Undergraduate Education George
Bridges, Divisional Dean for the Arts and Humanities Michael Halleran, Vice Provost
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Susan Jeffords, and David Canfield-Budde Assistant to Dean Dubrow. Dean Dubrow
led a detailed conversation regarding the goals for the review. We also outlined
information and materials needed from the Honors Program as well as processes for
gathering input from the campus community. This meeting was summarized by Dean
Dubrow in her change letter to the committee of March 23.
As was suggested in the charge letter the UW committee members met with the Honors
Director and Staff, members of the administration of the Office of Undergraduate
Education, a former Director of the Honors Program, Divisional Dean Michael Halleran
and the Director and Associate Director of the Robinson Center for Young Scholars. We
also met with some faculty members of the Honors Council and Student Honors Council
members. Not all of the UW members were able to attend every session. However care
was taken to share the information between committee members.
With the able assistance of David Canfield-Budde, Assistant to Dean Dubrow, a survey
was sent to current Honors Students (1040 University Honors, 511 Departmental Honors,
94 Academy, 34 Robinson Ctr.) and the 76 faculty who have taught in the Honors
Program in the past 2 years. 1176 non-Honors students with GPA’s of 3.8 and above
were also surveyed. The committee also indicated its willingness to meet privately with
any interested party or to receive email or other written communication.
The committee received a self study from the Honors Program which included:
1. Overview, mission, history and values
2. Program Organization
3. Students
4. Curriculum and Teaching
5. Evaluation and Assessment
6. Diversity
7. Development
8. Conclusion
Appendix:
A. Core Curriculum and Requirements, Summary of Teaching Evaluations
B. Admission and Graduation Statistics
C. General Information and Annual Report
D. Publicity
E. Peer Institution Comparison
F. National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Information
G. “An Honors Program for the Twenty First Century” “Honors Retreat Notes: 1999”
H. HEC Board Summary
The Self Study clearly communicated many facts and figures as well as the history of the
Program. However, it was noted at the outset that many questions which one might
expect a unit to have addressed were not. A primary example is that the Honors Program
did not appear to have a clear vision of itself. As the review progressed the wisdom of
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Director Wong’s request for a formal review before these questions were fully answered
became more apparent. The Honors Program is not as independent a unit as an academic
department and requires many others to participate in determining its future.
On April 28 and 29 the full committee conducted the formal site visit, which included
meetings with Director Shawn Wong, the staff of the Honors Program, faculty, students,
and the Acting Dean of Undergraduate Education, as well as a tour of the Honors Suite in
Mary Gates Hall and the Honors Dorm, 2 floors in McCarty Hall. The committee had
informal conversations at meals and in formal executive session, followed by the exit
interview with representatives of the Graduate School, College of Arts and Sciences and
the Provost’s Office. Unfortunately the Acting Dean of the College of Undergraduate
Education had a family emergency and was not available. (Schedule attached.)
From all the documentation and direct conversations, we feel that we have been able to
form a fair and representative picture of the Honors Program as it stands today. The
committee is most grateful to the Director, Professor Shawn Wong, and the entire staff of
the Honors Program for their considerable time and effort in gathering information and
helping the committee carry out its task to best effect. We would like to thank the many
administrators, faculty, staff and students who took considerable time and effort to
participate in the review process. In addition, David Canfield-Budde of the Graduate
School provided valuable and conscientious support to the committee.
The Chair would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the members of the
committee. It has been a pleasure and privilege to work with these committed, generous,
and knowledgeable individuals. I need to further express my personal appreciation for
the long hours, hard work, and expert judgment they gave to the review process and the
writing of this report, all with unfailing collegiality, good will and good humor.
Overview
This report needs to begin with the many positive aspects of the University of
Washington Honors Program which has excellent and happy students. The Director is
resourceful and committed; the staff is able and caring. The majority of the teaching is
excellent. The Honors Program has the benefit of many first rate facilities in Mary Gates
Hall, an innovative residence hall program, excellent services and opportunities provided
by the Office of Undergraduate Education, an innovative community scholars program,
and strong student mentors. The Honors Program provides small classes, exceptional
Study Abroad programs and has excellent relationships with certain departments. It also
offers an important service to exceptional high-school-age students who enter the UW
Honors Program following 10th grade through its partnership with the Robinson Center’s
Academy for Young Scholars.
All of these contribute to a quality experience for the students. However, the current
administrative structure and funding have marginalized and shackled the Honors
Program. To be blunt, the Honors Program is under-funded, understaffed and impaired
by its current status.
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In our report we will discuss the many strengths of the Honors Program, our
understanding of the problems and challenges which confront it and offer many
suggestions and recommendations for improvement. We believe that the Honors
Program at the University of Washington has the ability to become one of the premier
programs of its kind in the country. We further believe that an excellent Honors Program
will enhance and stimulate the rest of the University in many positive ways.
In a time of limited resources, it is unfortunate that many of our recommendations will
require more funding. However, much may be accomplished through restructuring,
cooperation between and among all units, departments, and colleges, revising
requirements and procedures, and so forth. These activities require as much time, effort
and good will as dollars.
It is possible that the overall tone of our report will appear to some as being highly
critical of the current program. The committee wishes to be perfectly clear that the
majority of problems we identify are systemic and are not a reflection on the abilities of
the current administration.
We have framed our report around the four critical issues identified by our review:
Critical Issue #1 Need to Define Vision
Critical Issue #2 Faculty and Students
Critical Issue #3 Curriculum
Critical Issue #4 Organization and Structure within the UW
These issues divide our report into four sections. Within each section we have identified
strengths as well as weaknesses and offer suggestions and recommendations for
improvements.
Critical Issue #1 - The Honors Program Vision
The UW Honors Program has served an increasing number of students who desire an
intensive and high-quality education at a large research university, much like numerous
other Honors Programs around the country. Many of UW's Honors Program students
appear to be satisfied with their experiences, but neither they, nor it seems their faculty or
departments realize what more is possible. The UW Honors Program has the
opportunity, with sound programmatic leadership and solid support from the central
administration, to raise itself to a new level. The existing program, while excellent to the
extent of its reach, has not realized its full potential on the UW campus nor has it
maximized its impact on developing student potential or learning. A new set of
aspirations and a clearly articulated vision is critical to moving the program upward.
The University of Washington has the tools and talent to create a world-class Honors
Program (or college), but it must stretch itself to do so. A vision statement is critical to
inspiring academic leaders, faculty, and students to make that stretch. The vision
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statement should be short, concrete, motivating, and ambitious. It should stress
excellence, both in terms of the students it serves and in the way it serves them. It should
build on UW's current strengths, but also clarify where the Honors Program is headed
academically, how it is situated in the University, and what goals it aspires to. The
statement should name the program's uniqueness and top assets, providing the rationale
for its growth and strength through the coming years. The honors vision should also
resonate with the University's overall vision of the future.
The vision should be used to drive the program's specific emphases, curriculum, and
pedagogy, as well as its service and community programs. It should lay the foundation
for the program's (or college's) future. From this vision statement then, a strategic plan
can be formulated that identifies objectives, indicators or measures of success, as well as
baseline and target values within a defined period of time. The vision will also be critical
to fundraising or development efforts in the future.
Recommendation 1.1: The Honors Program must define and articulate a powerful new
vision for its future that describes, in no uncertain terms, its special role in the University
as the place where academic excellence is highly valued, experienced, and
accomplished. It should position the Honors Program as the University's lead unit in
promoting world-class teaching, learning and research or creative achievement.
Recommendation 1.2: Use the new vision statement to guide all Honors Program
discussions and actions in the future.
Critical Issue #2 Faculty and Students
General Observations
The Committee notes that the Honors Program suffers from the same lack of diversity as
the rest of the University, something which should be addressed. The Review Committee
also found that students in the Honors Program do have some sense of community
fostered by their shared core classes, shared space and counseling facilities in the Honors
Programs Office, and by shared extracurricular experiences. The inclusion of faculty in
this sense of communal enterprise, however, is far more sporadic and tends to be
dependent upon individual personalities rather than upon systemic programmatic and
budgetary structures that formalize faculty-student interaction and build scholarly
community. There are several strategies, programmatic and administrative, that the
Honors Program might employ to enhance faculty-student interaction, faculty
commitment, and a common mission of intellectual excellence.
Diversity
We will devote few words to this problem because a few words serve to state the needs.
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Recommendation 2.1: Make increasing the diversity of the faculty, staff and students in
the Honors Program a high priority and provide resources to accomplish the mission.
Mentorship
A critical feature that distinguishes the university life and future contributions of
outstanding students is the experience gained working closely with attentive mentors. It
is striking that both University of Washington undergraduates who have later won Nobel
Prizes (George Hitchings [Physiology and Medicine, 1988] and Linda Buck [Physiology
and Medicine, 2004]) were closely involved in the research programs of eminent faculty.
The same issue is the focus of Elizabeth Gladfelter’s book, Aggasiz’s Legacy (Oxford
Univ. Press, 2002). Ms. Gladfelter documents the educational and professional lives of
many leading researcher-scholars in the biological and marine sciences, searching for
common features of their early training. An element common to virtually all was an
intense working relationship with a scholarly mentor in their student days, along with
hands-on field work aimed at discovery of new knowledge. These relationships tended to
be one-to-one, focused, intense and somewhat different from the opportunities offered at
present at UW or indeed, elsewhere in Honors Programs nationally. For such
experiences to be effective, it appears that the student should be fully integrated into the
team and exposed to a significant amount of one-on-one ‘face’ time with a mentor. We
urge that UW distinguish its Honors Program from most others nationally, by
establishment of unique opportunities of this kind, and suggest methods to achieve this
goal:
Recommendation 2.2: Each new student in the Honors Program should be matched with
a faculty mentor within the first quarter in the program with clear guidelines (established
by Honors Program and deliberately adopted by the Honors Council to suit a range of
disciplines) defining expectations for scholarly or creative interactions and productivity.
We mean by this, substantial one-on-one, focused, intense interactions that occupy both
participants together at least weekly, aimed at discovery of new knowledge or other
scholarly or creative activity appropriate to the focus of both participants. Wherever
possible and relevant, we encourage the faculty mentor to extend the network of mentors
to include graduate students and other faculty.
Recommendation 2.3: Each full-time faculty member, including research lines, be
honored with the opportunity to serve as a mentor in the Honors Program and be given
the title of Honors Faculty Mentor. The administration should recognize Honors Faculty
Mentors in merit, reappointment and promotion reviews.
Honors Faculty and Course Support.
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The current sporadic involvement of faculty in the Honors community is symptomatic of
a program without a firm identity as an independent unit and without enough budgetary
resources to ensure stable and continuing faculty involvement. The program presently
recruits faculty participants through a combination of voluntary teaching efforts by
faculty, and opportunistic shopping around campus by a very hard working staff. This
has worked remarkably well under the circumstances, largely because of the dedication
of a few individuals for whom Honors Program involvement is a ‘labor of love’. While
such dedication is commendable, it will not institutionalize the Honors Program as a
nationally renowned center of excellence with an independent and distinguished Honor
curriculum with systemic curricular options. Clearly this is unacceptable for the success
and reputation of the Honors Program and the University of Washington.
Nor will personal dedication permit appropriate growth or bring in new faculty. The
existing program annually serves 200 new students out of an applicant pool of about
2500. The Honors Program is thus forced to refuse access annually to many hundreds of
the best-qualified student applicants to the UW. For many of these students who are
considering a range of opportunities, being admitted to the Honors Program is a
prerequisite for considering the UW at all. When they are refused admission (note: this
year, it was harder to gain admission to UW Honors than to Stanford!), they subsequently
decline to enter the UW. This is a serious loss to the University as a whole. Secondly, the
present budget permits neither the development of an adequately distinguished, nor an
independent Honors curriculum. Clearly this is unacceptable for the success and
reputation of the Honors Program and the University of Washington.
Recommendation 2.4: The Honors Program should grow in numbers of students served
and receive both new resources and independence. We suggest a modular approach to
the needed growth. For instance 50 more students might be admitted each year until a
total of 500 are admitted annually. The details of this growth and a funding model are
found on page 16, recommendation 4.11.
Regular, Systematic Teaching Program and Empowerment of Honors Council
In conjunction with formalized faculty budgetary support, the program of courses for the
Honors Program students could be significantly improved by establishment of systematic
offerings in core areas, presented on a regular basis (see section #3). The present underfunding
of the program, and its lack of faculty resources, is a part of the root of this issue.
Addressing the underlying problem depends in part on the funding described in
Recommendation 4.11. Lack of faculty resources (and therefore low involvement of
faculty) also affects the efficacy of the Honors Council and the desire of faculty to
assume leadership and responsibility in the program.
Recommendation 2.5: If funding is forthcoming, the program should consider allocating
at least part of the new support to assure that a basic curriculum is organized, and
sustained on a regular basis over the long term. Some recommendations about the
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Honors curriculum are in section three. Final decisions about the nature of that
curriculum should be made by the Honors Council whose membership should be
enlarged and redefined as suggested below.
Recommendation 2.6: The Honors Council should be restructured to include additional
people who teach regularly and others with prior leadership experience in the Honors
Program. The Council should also be involved actively in establishing curricula,
mentoring, faculty selection, and student/faculty policy issues for the Honors Program,
and thus be in a better position to ‘add value’ based upon the direct, recent experience of
its members.
Honors Faculty Designation
Service on the Honors Faculty should be perceived as a great honor and institutionally
acknowledged as a significant designation for participating faculty and graduate students.
We also seek to reduce some of the barriers between distinguished undergraduate
students and the scholarly pursuits of the faculty and graduate students in this great
research university.
Recommendation 2.7: We urge the University to designate in some formal way, the
participation of faculty and graduate students in the Honors Program of the University.
Recognition with an appropriate designation suitable for inclusion in curriculum vitae
might be helpful in this regard.
Critical Issue #3 Curriculum
General Observations
The Review Committee found that the current Honors curriculum, while offering some
exciting courses which the students obviously enjoy, lacks coherency and a sense of
purpose. Its core curriculum is nicely interdisciplinary but is bogged down in general
education requirements and unimaginatively traditional in its emphasis on Western
Civilization. Some of the electives are striking and enjoyable but clustered in a few
disciplines. The curriculum is focused largely on the lower division and does not
dovetail well with Departmental Honors. Many capable students who complete College
Honors course work cannot get into Departmental Honors Programs which have limited
spaces available. Also many College Honors students find the Senior Thesis
Requirement difficult to achieve as each student must find a willing and qualified faculty
mentor, or the Thesis is not an appropriate format for a culminating project. Students
who do not complete an Honors thesis graduate with no accolade of College Honors on
their transcripts.
This bottle neck is a major factor contributing to the 46% attrition rate of students from
the program. In the course work, there is excellent participation by some departments
(notably mathematics) in the Honors Program but not by others. The sciences are
particularly poorly represented. Some honors course support is provided by the Honors
9
Program to buy out faculty from the departments. But the funds are too limited to insure
an ongoing balanced menu of course offerings. Also the Self-Study notes an increasing
decline in Honors courses offered in the departments.
Graduation Accolades
The Honors Program and appropriate administrative bodies should address the graduation
requirements for a degree with College Honors so that successful completion is possible
for all students who enter the program. The completion of lower division honors course
work and the Senior Thesis is a good path but currently the ONLY path. There should be
alternate pathways, which might include lower division Honors course work followed by
a series of upper division Honors courses; or by Honors research experiences in the upper
division; or by Honors special projects (such as completion of a novel, a play, a film;
publication of a sponsored article in a scientific or scholarly journal etc.). Graduate level
courses might also serve as Honors courses and be applied to completion of the degree.
High level, upper division individual tutorials in the major might also be applied. There
are endless possibilities.
Recommendation 3.1: Restructure the requirements for graduation with College Honors
to include several alternate routes, including but not limited to completion of a
Departmental Senior Thesis.
Recommendation 3.2: Consider changing the accolade for completion of the Thesis from
“with distinction” to “With Departmental Honors” and make it possible for students to
graduate with either College Honors or Departmental Honors, or with both these
accolades.
Revitalizing the Curriculum
The creation of alternate routes to graduation with College Honors will, of course,
demand that more Honors courses and Honors experiences be offered at the upper
division level, and possibly even the lower, as the program grows. Departments may be
encouraged to revitalize their Honors offerings in the majors. But there are also ways of
using the existing UW curriculum without necessarily incurring additional expense.
Many smaller, upper division courses in the major might be identified as being suitable
for carrying Honors credit; as would graduate level courses. Special programs and
research opportunities such as the Friday Harbor Lab might be earmarked for Honors
credit. Certainly research experience should be particularly targeted and encouraged. The
effort to examine the UW curriculum in this light will no doubt have beneficial effects in
the Departments and help bring more scientists on board. The effort should also create a
thoughtful assessment of how the current lower division Honors core and specialty
Honors courses fit into the overall Honors degree and stimulate a reexamination of the
content of the core and its somewhat moribund attitude towards general education.
Recommendation 3.3: Establish a committee to examine the Honors Program curriculum
and identify suitable courses and special programs and high level academic enrichment
10
experiences which are worthy of carrying Honors credit. Formalize these into the
Honors curriculum as options for students.
Recommendation 3.4: Have the same committee review the core and bring its content
into a more exciting discussion of interdisciplinary issues than its traditional current
base. Broaden the offerings in the honors electives across all departments.
Recommendation 3.5: Consider exempting Honors students from all general education
requirements. With appropriate faculty guidance, Honors students should be able to
design their own path to the degree, once enough Honors options are in place.
Filling Gaps in the Curriculum
Students choose to come to the University of Washington for a variety of reasons, but
certainly many are attracted to those programs and majors and intellectual highpoints that
have the best reputation. The Honors Program should be deeply embedded in these
programs so that it becomes institutionalized as the place to go get the truly excellent
education.
Recommendation 3.6: Identify all the programs, majors and intellectual/artistic
highpoints for which UW is famous and find ways of building Honors options into them
with the goal of building on UW’s academic strengths to strengthen the curriculum and
the reputation of Honors at UW.
In their third and fourth years many Honors students experience difficulty in meeting
departmental major requirements and continuing to meet the requirements for the Honors
Program. Coordination and cooperation between departments and the Honors Program
could relieve most of these problems.
Recommendation 3.7: In the process of developing the Honors curriculum make an effort
to work with individual departments so that Honors Program courses can meet some
departmental requirements and vice versa.
The excellent education available at the UW should also include the honing of skills and
proficiencies in quantitative reasoning, working new technologies, public speaking, and
writing. Yet there seems to be a dearth of English Composition options for Honors
students and few forums for presentation of research and public speaking.
Recommendation 3.8: Develop Honors course options in English Composition and in
technology proficiencies; develop Honors options that allow for the honing of
presentation and academic conference skills.
Seattle is known for high technology and for art. It can be a rich laboratory for joint
pedagogical efforts with the full spectrum of local industry, arts, and research institutions.
Some of this is being done with the Community Scholars program and the Carlson Center
but more could be done.
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Recommendation 3.9: Encourage and expand internships and other communityuniversity
liaison programs that allow Honors students to put theory into practice, and
utilize the rich opportunities available in the city. Work with the Carlson Leadership and
Public Service Center to offer honors credit for these options. Promote these experiences
as exceptional opportunities for ALL UW students.
The Review Committee found that more could be done in the curriculum to speak to the
interests and needs of ethnically and culturally diverse students who are part of the
undergraduate student body at UW.
Recommendation 3.10: In the process of developing the Honors curriculum, make special
efforts to identify courses in the curriculum, suitable for Honors credit that typically
attract underrepresented students. Keep a similar focus in mind during the development
of the revised core curriculum. Consider developing a special bridge course carrying
honors credit in the Academy for Young Scholars. Develop interdisciplinary elective
honors courses addressing a broad range of cultural and artistic experiences that speak
to the life experiences of a diverse cohort of high achieving students.
Recommendation 3.11: Take steps to insure participation of a diverse faculty in the
development and teaching of Honors courses.
Recommendation 3.12: Diversity Scholars should be considered eligible for admission to
the Honors Program. They should be recruited and invited to apply.
Critical Issue #4: Organization and Structure
The Honors Program has a triple mission: (1) to recruit and admit top students into the
Honors Program; (2) to provide a very high quality, interdisciplinary general education,
especially in the first two years; and (3) to provide encouragement, advising, and
pathways for students to graduate from the UW with Honors. As we discovered, certain
elements of this mission are adequately served by the present organization and structure,
while others are not.
The Role of the Honors Director
There was unanimous sentiment – from the director, to the dean, to the review
committee’s external members – that, as presently defined, the position of Honors
Director falls far short of the task. To begin, 50% is hardly adequate: it is a full-time
position. At present, the Honors Director teaches two courses in his home department
(for the other 50% of his position) and therefore has no room in his schedule to teach
Honors courses!
Recommendation 4.1: Immediately increase the Honors Director position to 100%.
12
The nature of the work of the director also led to a discussion of the structural position of
the Honors Director. While it may well make sense to have the Honors Program continue
to be a part of the Office of Undergraduate Education (more about this later), much of
what the Director must do to ensure an excellent educational experience requires an
ability to negotiate with deans and chairs. If the Honors Program were some day to
become an Honors College, following national norms, the Honors Director would
become an independent dean. However, until that time, the Honors Director should be
elevated to a structurally more authoritative position, both with respect to the Dean of
Undergraduate Education, and other deans throughout the UW.
Recommendation 4.2: Immediately designate the Honors Director as Associate Dean for
Honors, reporting to the Dean of Undergraduate Education.
Staff Organization
We applaud the Honors Director’s evaluation and restructuring of staff and staff
responsibilities, and utilization of the expertise of the Office of Undergraduate Education.
However – and this is related to the recommendations above – further responsibility for
the curriculum as well as bringing faculty energy to Honors must rest increasingly with
the director, rather than other staff. As we envision the future of the Honors Program an
Associate Director (Assistant Dean, should recommendation 4.2 be followed) will soon
be a necessity. The Associate Director can be active in identifying and recruiting
faculty to teach and mentor, and add balance to the expertise of the leadership of the
Honors Program. For example, the current Director of the Honors Program is a
humanist. The new Associate Director could be a scientist. The responsibilities of an
Associate Director will need to be clearly defined so that there is no confusion or
conflicting assignments between the Director and the Associate Director.
Recommendation 4.3: Immediately identify a faculty member as full time Associate
Director/Assistant Dean.
It should be noted that there was universal praise for the current Honors staff: students
and faculty have had very good experiences with the senior staff, and find them to be
knowledgeable and caring. However, we know that faculty talking with faculty can be
more effective than staff talking with faculty especially when the topics include
curriculum, courses and other direct academic matters.
Relationship between Honors and the Academy
The Academy for Young Scholars is in its third year. The demand for the program
remains strong, and the review committee was very impressed by the Academy students
whom we met. Many of these Academy students expressed a strong desire to be more
accepted by and integrated with the non-Academy Honors students; they understand that
a few bad apples, especially among the first-year class, have created some stigma.
However, they are also optimistic that this is easily overcome.
13
There have been growing pains and tensions between the Academy and Honors staff. We
understand that these differences are being worked out, and we strongly encourage
continued progress in this regard. The fundamental idea of the Academy remains sound.
Recommendations 4.4:
A. Academy students should continue to be admitted directly into Honors. Once
admitted, they are subject to all of the academic requirements of Honors.
B. Academy students should comprise a set percentage of the incoming Honors
class, perhaps 10%. As the Honors Program grows, so too should the
Academy. If the incoming Honors class is set at 300, the target number of
Academy admissions would be 30; if it is 500, the target number of Academy
students would be 50.
C. Academy students have agreed to become University students by virtue of
accepting admission. Their standards of behavior must reflect their
University student status rather than their age. Failure to comply with
behavioral expectations should constitute grounds for dismissal from Honors,
and should lie within the purview of the Honors Director’s discretion, in
consultation with Academy staff.
D. We recommend that the Dean of Undergraduate Education review the
budgetary arrangements between the Academy and Honors and make any
necessary adjustments.
Relationship between University Honors and Departmental Honors
There are considerable structural impediments to students who wish to graduate with
Honors, and they reflect the state of relations between University Honors and
Departmental Honors. This relationship is characterized by an absence of
communication, a lack of coordinated planning, inadequate resources both at the
University and departmental levels, and obstructionist rules governing the designation of
honors at graduation. It should be noted that, under the present system, students cannot
graduate with honors unless they complete both University and departmental honors
requirements. (See also section 3).
Inadequate communication. On their website, the Honors Program lists departments that
offer departmental honors, and the requirements of each of the programs. We have no
way of knowing whether this is a complete list, and, at the time of the review, some of
the links were dead. Furthermore, we met with departmental representatives from two of
the departments that have well-developed and long-standing departmental Honors options
– Political Science and Mathematics – and discovered that there has been no
communication at all between the Honors Program and the department, not even at the
adviser level. Several students whom we interviewed confirmed that the relationship is
poor: often it was left to them to figure out how to handle competing requirements when
there were established programs, and how to exercise a departmental honors option when
none was offered formally. The observation that a mere 46 % of students graduate with
honors is no surprise, therefore.
14
Recommendation 4.5: The Honors Director and advising staff should immediately
convene protocols for regular and on-going bi-directional communication between the
Honors Program and formal departmental Honors Programs.
Planning and Resources. The Honors Director noted that one of his priorities is to assist
departments with their departmental Honors Programs, mindful that there can be no
single template. At the same time, both University and departmental Honors face a
considerable structural challenge: there are simply too few spaces at the departmental
level for Honors students to pursue an Honors option. For instance, we discovered that
there are only 12-15 spaces per year in the Honors option in Political Science, a
department that graduates more than 300 students per year. A similar story holds in
Psychology, and had we interviewed other departments, we are likely to have heard the
same thing.
For this reason – and primarily because it does not serve students well at all – the Honors
Program should take a leadership role in enrollment planning for Honors options across
the University. In order to do so, the first step is to conduct an audit of every department
that offers an undergraduate degree, and then to discover not only if there is an Honors
option, but what it consists of, and how many places there are for students at present. (It
should also be noted the departmental Honors options are not now limited to students
who are University Honors Program students.)
Recommendation 4.6: Conduct an audit of Honors options in all departments that offer
an undergraduate degree, noting the requirements for the option and the number of
spaces available to students.
Additionally, in order to create a set of opportunities for students which are inviting
academically, and seamless structurally, the Honors director should consider the
possibility of academic strategic planning with key departments. No doubt this strategic
planning exercise will reveal an inadequate number of opportunities in majors for
University Honors students, and that a plan to ameliorate this situation – including
bringing new resources to departments – will emerge.
Recommendation 4.7: Commence academic strategic planning for Honors across the
university, including representatives from key departments.
During this process the University may wish to consider a model of a true four-year,
University-wide Honors Program with a concomitant demise of independent
departmental Honors. That is, there would be only one kind of Honors – University. The
idea of uniform standards and expectations, centrally trained Honors advisors and the
like may not fit within the culture of the UW. However, it is worth considering.
Finally, fix the transcript problems. The committee may not have grasped every detail of
this topic; however it is clear that many rules or policies concerning transcripts are
arbitrary and antiquated. We do not recommend a committee consider these
recommendations. We recommend that the UW Administration just fix them.
15
Recommendation 4.8: Students should have Honors designations on their transcripts for
both University and departmental Honors courses in any quarter where they are so
enrolled.
Recommendation 4.9: A diploma should indicate that the student has graduated with
honors in a specific discipline from the UW Honors Program.
Recommendation 4.10: All Honors courses should be identified with an “H” in course
schedules, transcripts and so forth. The current designation for some honors courses as
“H A&S” dates back to a different organizational configuration, and should be replaced
by the simple and straightforward “H”.
Bringing Resources to University Honors through Development
The development arm of Undergraduate Education is still in its early stages, having been
established three years ago. In our interview with Eric Godfrey, Assistant Vice President
for Development for Student Support, he noted that in order to make significant progress
in raising money for University Honors, it will be necessary for University officials at the
highest level to articulate Honors as a UW priority, and to clarify its place in the overall
academic organization of the University. At the same time, he noted that the most
effective approach to donors will be as a partnership with the University: donors are
asked to support student scholarship and innovative academic programming, while the
University will provide for the core academic curriculum.
Supporting the Instructional Mission: Financial Resource Implications
The Honors Program has been living off a mix of permanent and temporary resources,
the latter having been provided by the President, through the Provost’s Office.
Regularizing the resource base is a priority, of course, but the larger question is about the
size of the Honors Program and the resources necessary to support it. As the committee
has suggested in another part of this report, given the needs of the State of Washington
and the priorities of the UW, the program is presently too small. If we assume, for the
purposes of this discussion, that the proper incoming size of the Honors Program is 500
per year at its build-out, then the question becomes how to bring the necessary faculty
and staff to the program.
Faculty
As mentioned earlier in the report, in its present configuration, there are too few tenured
or tenure-track faculty involved in the Honors Program at any level – teaching courses,
providing governance and oversight, offering innovative directions. Even to remain at
the present size, this problem simply must be addressed. There are two fundamental
aspects to the problem: regularizing faculty involvement, and paying for it. At present, it
is largely an ad hoc system (a begging bowl system, in more colorful terms): the Honors
staff asks either for a gift of teaching (faculty teach as an overload) or offers chairs a
16
graduate student stipend in return for a faculty member’s commitment. Or a home
department receives nothing in exchange for faculty teaching in the Honors Program.
In many cases this process breeds ill will towards the Honors Program in the units.
None of these are sustainable or appropriate for the UW.
How might the Honors Program regularize faculty commitment? We heard a number of
ideas that are worthy of further development:
• Arrange for all tenure-track and tenured new faculty to teach one Honors
course some time in their first five years with appropriate compensation to
the home unit.
• Provide for a certain number of faculty positions to reside in Honors, to be
filled on a rotating basis.
• Ask the Provost to allocate resources to deans of colleges (Arts and
Sciences, Engineering, Ocean and Fishery Sciences, and Business chief
among them) on a contractual basis, and give authority to the Honors
Director to negotiate these contracts. (The approach used to populate the
introductory biology series with excellent faculty from a number of
departments and colleges might serve as a useful model.)
• Ask the Provost and deans to designate surplus teaching energy from
undersubscribed departments for Honors.
• Arrange for all Distinguished Teaching Award winners to teach a course
in Honors some time in the three years following their award, again with
appropriate compensation to the home unit.
While the idea of bringing public intellectuals and others from the community in to teach
Honors students brings an added dimension to the students’ educational experience, it is
no substitute for the kind of regular faculty commitment that must serve as the core of the
Honors Program. It is, in fact, key to addressing Critical Issue #2, preceding.
Recommendation 4.11: Pursue all ideas for bringing regular teaching faculty to the
Honors Program
In one form or another, all of the ideas listed above are in place at peer universities with
strong Honors Programs, and should be developed.
The question remains how to fund the Honors Program in a rational way, both it its
present configuration, and in growth mode. A rough formula for thinking about resource
implications might be as follows: For every additional 100 incoming Honors students, 4
additional faculty positions and 1 additional adviser are required. This is roughly
equivalent to a $400,000 allocation. Note that the present instructional budget of Honors
is approximately 2/3 of this amount. The assumptions are as follows: 100 students will
take 15 credits each per quarter resulting in 4500 total credits. Approximately 1/3 of
these credits – 1500 – will be taken in the Honors core curriculum. Assume an annual
teaching load of 4 courses per faculty, 20 students per course, and 3-5 credits per course
resulting in a per faculty load of 240-400 SCH per year. At the upper boundary of 400
17
SCH/faculty/year, four additional faculty will be required to provide 1500 SCH to those
100 students.
Recommendation 4.12: Establish a reliable annual budget expectation for Honors.
Recommendation 4.13: Decide on the proper size for the Honors Program, and budget
for it accordingly. Utilize a modular approach: for example, for every additional 100
students, plan to allocate an additional $400,000.
Conclusion
The Honors Program at the University of Washington is a crossroads. We believe that it
is possible for the University of Washington to have one of the premier Honors Programs
in the country and that a strong Honors Program will strengthen all of the units of the
University. We have detailed our recommendations in the preceding pages. As you
consider this report we believe there are five underlying principles to bear in mind. In
order for the Honors Program to improve, grow and thrive it must have a dynamic vision,
it must work to become an independent college, it must be funded at a reasonable level,
it must be respected highly, both internally and extramurally, and it must be flexible.
Principle 1. Vision The UW needs to envision its Honors Program as a dynamic leader
of academic excellence across the campus. It needs to envision an Honors Program
which serves a larger number of the state’s best and brightest students and engages the
best of the faculty as well. The new vision must not be fettered by current budgets or
policies. It needs to envision a program which will require new policies and procedures.
Principle 2. Structure As part of realizing the new vision, the UW should work towards
creating an Honors College. An Honors College gives the Head of the Honors Program
the standing of an independent Dean who is able to work with, negotiate and if need be
arm wrestle as an equal with other Deans. A Dean of an Honors College would sit on the
Board of Deans and have regular interaction with the Provost and the President.
Principle 3. Funding Fund the Honors Program/College appropriately. We know that
the necessary funding cannot appear over night and may well be dependent on a major
endowment gift. Nevertheless an increase in the permanent budget must happen in the
new biennium. Plans should be made to increase the biennial budget incrementally until
such time as an endowment is secured.
Principle 4. Culture Change the culture at the UW to embrace and support the Honors
Program. The entire administration, the President, the Provost, and all the Deans, need to
make it clear that working with the Honors Program to make it the best possible is what
is done at the UW. Units who cooperate in instituting some of the recommendations in
this report should be rewarded or should benefit in a tangible way. If the culture becomes
one of expected and demanded support and cooperation, it will not take long for many of
the long term problems to be eliminated.
18
Principle 5 Flexibility Make change possible. Eliminate arbitrary or antiquated rules
which block student progress. Re-examine the cap on AP credits. Re-examine the
admissions process. Eliminate one of the essays and look for other ways to reduce the
burden/workload the current admissions process places on the staff. Grant Honors
students early admission to majors which require admission. These are a few of the
systemic barriers to creativity that discourage imagination and change.
Many of the ingredients for an exemplary Honors Program already exist at the University
of Washington. Create a recipe for excellence.
19
Appendix A
Recommendations from the Report of the
Honors Program Review Committee
Recommendation 1.1: The Honors Program must define and articulate a powerful new
vision for its future that describes, in no uncertain terms, its special role in the University
as the place where academic excellence is highly valued, experienced, and
accomplished. It should position the Honors Program as the University's lead unit in
promoting world-class teaching, learning and research or creative achievement.
Recommendation 1.2: Use the new vision statement to guide all Honors Program
discussions and actions in the future.
Recommendation 2.1: Make increasing the diversity of the faculty, staff and students in
the Honors Program a high priority and provide resources to accomplish the mission.
Recommendation 2.2: Each new student in the Honors Program should be matched with a
faculty mentor within the first quarter in the program with clear guidelines (established
by Honors Program and deliberately adopted by the Honors Council to suit a range of
disciplines) defining expectations for scholarly or creative interactions and productivity.
We mean by this, substantial one-on-one, focused, intense interactions that occupy both
participants together at least weekly, aimed at discovery of new knowledge or other
scholarly or creative activity appropriate to the focus of both participants. Wherever
possible and relevant, we encourage the faculty mentor to extend the network of mentors
to include graduate students and other faculty.
Recommendation 2.3: Each full-time faculty member, including research lines, be
honored with the opportunity to serve as a mentor in the Honors Program and be given
the title of Honors Faculty Mentor. The administration should recognize Honors Faculty
Mentors in merit, reappointment and promotion reviews.
Recommendation 2.4: The Honors Program should grow in numbers of students served
and receive both new resources and independence. We suggest a modular approach to
the needed growth. For instance 50 more students might be admitted each year until a
total of 500 are admitted annually. The details of this growth and a funding model are
found on page 16, recommendation 4.11.
Recommendation 2.5: If funding is forthcoming, the program should consider allocating
at least part of the new support to assure that a basic curriculum is organized, and
sustained on a regular basis over the long term. Some recommendations about the
Honors curriculum are in section three. Final decisions about the nature of that
curriculum should be made by the Honors Council whose membership should be
enlarged and redefined as suggested below.
20
Recommendation 2.6: The Honors Council should be restructured to include additional
people who teach regularly and others with prior leadership experience in the Honors
Program. The Council should also be involved actively in establishing curricula,
mentoring, faculty selection, and student/faculty policy issues for the Honors Program,
and thus be in a better position to ‘add value’ based upon the direct, recent experience of
its members.
Recommendation 2.7: We urge the University to designate in some formal way, the
participation of faculty and graduate students in the Honors Program of the University.
Recognition with an appropriate designation suitable for inclusion in curriculum vitae
might be helpful in this regard.
Recommendation 3.1: Restructure the requirements for graduation with College Honors
to include several alternate routes, including but not limited to completion of a
Departmental Senior Thesis.
Recommendation 3.2: Consider changing the accolade for completion of the Thesis from
“with distinction” to “With Departmental Honors” and make it possible for students to
graduate with either College Honors or Departmental Honors, or with both these
accolades.
Recommendation 3.3: Establish a committee to examine the Honors Program curriculum
and identify suitable courses and special programs and high level academic enrichment
experiences which are worthy of carrying Honors credit. Formalize these into the Honors
curriculum as options for students.
Recommendation 3.4: Have the same committee review the core and bring its content
into a more exciting discussion of interdisciplinary issues than its traditional current base.
Broaden the offerings in the honors electives across all departments.
Recommendation 3.5: Consider exempting Honors students from all general education
requirements. With appropriate faculty guidance, Honors students should be able to
design their own path to the degree, once enough Honors options are in place.
Recommendation 3.6: Identify all the programs, majors and intellectual/artistic
highpoints for which UW is famous and find ways of building Honors options into them
with the goal of building on UW’s academic strengths to strengthen the curriculum and
the reputation of Honors at UW.
Recommendation 3.7: In the process of developing the Honors curriculum make an effort
to work with individual departments so that Honors Program courses can meet some
departmental requirements and vice versa.
21
Recommendation 3.8: Develop Honors course options in English Composition and in
technology proficiencies; develop Honors options that allow for the honing of
presentation and academic conference skills.
Recommendation 3.9: Encourage and expand internships and other community-university
liaison programs that allow Honors students to put theory into practice, and utilize the
rich opportunities available in the city. Work with the Carlson Leadership and Public
Service Center to offer honors credit for these options. Promote these experiences as
exceptional opportunities for ALL UW students.
Recommendation 3.10: In the process of developing the Honors curriculum, make special
efforts to identify courses in the curriculum, suitable for Honors credit that typically
attract underrepresented students. Keep a similar focus in mind during the development
of the revised core curriculum. Consider developing a special bridge course carrying
honors credit in the Academy for Young Scholars. Develop interdisciplinary elective
honors courses addressing a broad range of cultural and artistic experiences that speak to
the life experiences of a diverse cohort of high achieving students.
Recommendation 3.11: Take steps to insure participation of a diverse faculty in the
development and teaching of Honors courses.
Recommendation 3.12: Diversity Scholars should be considered eligible for admission to
the Honors Program. They should be recruited and invited to apply.
Recommendation 4.1: Immediately increase the Honors Director position to 100%.
Recommendation 4.2: Immediately designate the Honors Director as Associate Dean for
Honors, reporting to the Dean of Undergraduate Education.
Recommendation 4.3: Immediately identify a faculty member as full time Associate
Director/Assistant Dean.
Recommendations 4.4:
E. Academy students should continue to be admitted directly into Honors. Once
admitted, they are subject to all of the academic requirements of Honors.
F. Academy students should comprise a set percentage of the incoming Honors
class, perhaps 10%. As the Honors Program grows, so too should the
Academy. If the incoming Honors class is set at 300, the target number of
Academy admissions would be 30; if it is 500, the target number of Academy
students would be 50.
G. Academy students have agreed to become University students by virtue of
accepting admission. Their standards of behavior must reflect their University
student status rather than their age. Failure to comply with behavioral
expectations should constitute grounds for dismissal from Honors, and should
lie within the purview of the Honors Director’s discretion, in consultation with
Academy staff.
22
H. We recommend that the Dean of Undergraduate Education review the
budgetary arrangements between the Academy and Honors and make any
necessary adjustments.
Recommendation 4.5: The Honors Director and advising staff should immediately
convene protocols for regular and on-going bi-directional communication between the
Honors Program and formal departmental Honors Programs.
Recommendation 4.6: Conduct an audit of Honors options in all departments that offer
an undergraduate degree, noting the requirements for the option and the number of spaces
available to students.
Recommendation 4.7: Commence academic strategic planning for Honors across the
university, including representatives from key departments.
During this process the University may wish to consider a model of a true four-year,
University-wide Honors Program with a concomitant demise of independent
departmental Honors. That is, there would be only one kind of Honors – University. The
idea of uniform standards and expectations, centrally trained Honors advisors and the like
may not fit within the culture of the UW. However, it is worth considering.
Recommendation 4.8: Students should have Honors designations on their transcripts for
both University and departmental Honors courses in any quarter where they are so
enrolled.
Recommendation 4.9: A diploma should indicate that the student has graduated with
honors in a specific discipline from the UW Honors Program.
Recommendation 4.10: All Honors courses should be identified with an “H” in course
schedules, transcripts and so forth. The current designation for some honors courses as
“H A&S” dates back to a different organizational configuration, and should be replaced
by the simple and straightforward “H”.
Recommendation 4.11: Pursue all ideas for bringing regular teaching faculty to the
Honors Program
Recommendation 4.12: Establish a reliable annual budget expectation for Honors.
Recommendation 4.13: Decide on the proper size for the Honors Program, and budget
for it accordingly. Utilize a modular approach: for example, for every additional 100
students, plan to allocate an additional $400,000.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Stokes Scholarhip: National Security Agency's Military Academy alternative
Stokes Scholarhip: National Security Agency's Military Academy alternative
Most people have probably heard of the two most popular ways to get the US government to pay for your college education. ROTC pays a partial scholarship in exchange for a number of years of service.
The service academies at West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force Academy and Coast Guard Academy are the other way. For Army, Navy and Air Force, you need a recommendation from a senator or congressman, and you need to sign up for a number of years in a job that may put you in harm's way, even if you're just saving people in the Coast Guard. They cover tuition, room, board, books and even give you a small salary.
But there's another way I never heard of until I saw a flier in a mail they send to students with very high math scores. There are other federal agencies competing for young talent, and one such agency that works with the military is the National Security Agency. While they're often called a super secret spy outfit, what they mostly do is work on keeping out communications secret from snoopers, and snoop on other people's internet and phone traffic to keep track of what any bad guys might be up to, using lots of technology and computers. They have a Stokes Scholarship program that pretty much offers the same deal as the military academies: they cover full tuition, room and board, books, fees, plus a year-round salary. On top of that, they give you a 12 week summer internship, transportation paid at their headquarters in Maryland.
Instead of having to to learn how to salute, march and fire an M-16 rifle, or run a sailing ship to become a military officer, you can evidently go to any college that you can manage to get into, be it your state university or Stanford without having to take any "military" or "naval" science courses or drills. However, you'll need to promise to sign up with NSA for 6 years for a four year degree. If you leave NSA employment earlier, you must reimburse the government for your tuition and book costs. You'll be working at a high, high, high security facility in Maryland instead of on a ship, tank or airplane stationed in anywhere, planet earth.
High school seniors can major in Computer Science or Computer/Electrical Engineering. They can expect to work on applications programming, computer security and graphics, or the design and implementation of software involving database management systems, real-time systems, networking, and distributed processing systems. Research could be pure or applied, design, development, and testing or project management and systems analysis. Typical projects focus on communications systems, computer security and networking, microprocessor applications, software engineering, and optics.
College sophomores in Mathematics or majors related to Intelligence Analysis including some languages are also invited. To qualify, you must be a U.S. citizen, eligible for a security clearance, a high school senior. You'll need a moderately high SAT/College Board score of 1600 (1100 Critical Reading and Math, 500 in Writing), or ACT of 25 (that's about the level of a better public university such as the University of Washington or Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), and a GPA better than a B, and demonstrated leadership abilities. They take applications from September 1st to November 30th, which is about the same as most early admission deadlines.
Unlike the usual college application, they ask that you submit a resume online rather than a common application. Then on paper, you'll need to send a Letter of Recommendation from a teacher/counselor/advisor, a one-page essay "I want a career at NSA because…", your high school transcript, and a photocopy of your SAT/ACT scores.
If you're a senior with great math scores, and don't mind you or your kid getting into the intelligence business and helping track down international bad guys, this is a deal that's hard to beat.
Here's a link to the PBS Nova program on how the ultra secret NSA was on the trail of Bin Laden, even getting the number to his satellite phone before 9/11 but failed to put the whole picture together in time.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/program.html
Here's the official NSA page with full directions:
http://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/stokes.shtml
Most people have probably heard of the two most popular ways to get the US government to pay for your college education. ROTC pays a partial scholarship in exchange for a number of years of service.
The service academies at West Point, Annapolis, and Air Force Academy and Coast Guard Academy are the other way. For Army, Navy and Air Force, you need a recommendation from a senator or congressman, and you need to sign up for a number of years in a job that may put you in harm's way, even if you're just saving people in the Coast Guard. They cover tuition, room, board, books and even give you a small salary.
But there's another way I never heard of until I saw a flier in a mail they send to students with very high math scores. There are other federal agencies competing for young talent, and one such agency that works with the military is the National Security Agency. While they're often called a super secret spy outfit, what they mostly do is work on keeping out communications secret from snoopers, and snoop on other people's internet and phone traffic to keep track of what any bad guys might be up to, using lots of technology and computers. They have a Stokes Scholarship program that pretty much offers the same deal as the military academies: they cover full tuition, room and board, books, fees, plus a year-round salary. On top of that, they give you a 12 week summer internship, transportation paid at their headquarters in Maryland.
Instead of having to to learn how to salute, march and fire an M-16 rifle, or run a sailing ship to become a military officer, you can evidently go to any college that you can manage to get into, be it your state university or Stanford without having to take any "military" or "naval" science courses or drills. However, you'll need to promise to sign up with NSA for 6 years for a four year degree. If you leave NSA employment earlier, you must reimburse the government for your tuition and book costs. You'll be working at a high, high, high security facility in Maryland instead of on a ship, tank or airplane stationed in anywhere, planet earth.
High school seniors can major in Computer Science or Computer/Electrical Engineering. They can expect to work on applications programming, computer security and graphics, or the design and implementation of software involving database management systems, real-time systems, networking, and distributed processing systems. Research could be pure or applied, design, development, and testing or project management and systems analysis. Typical projects focus on communications systems, computer security and networking, microprocessor applications, software engineering, and optics.
College sophomores in Mathematics or majors related to Intelligence Analysis including some languages are also invited. To qualify, you must be a U.S. citizen, eligible for a security clearance, a high school senior. You'll need a moderately high SAT/College Board score of 1600 (1100 Critical Reading and Math, 500 in Writing), or ACT of 25 (that's about the level of a better public university such as the University of Washington or Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), and a GPA better than a B, and demonstrated leadership abilities. They take applications from September 1st to November 30th, which is about the same as most early admission deadlines.
Unlike the usual college application, they ask that you submit a resume online rather than a common application. Then on paper, you'll need to send a Letter of Recommendation from a teacher/counselor/advisor, a one-page essay "I want a career at NSA because…", your high school transcript, and a photocopy of your SAT/ACT scores.
If you're a senior with great math scores, and don't mind you or your kid getting into the intelligence business and helping track down international bad guys, this is a deal that's hard to beat.
Here's a link to the PBS Nova program on how the ultra secret NSA was on the trail of Bin Laden, even getting the number to his satellite phone before 9/11 but failed to put the whole picture together in time.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/spyfactory/program.html
Here's the official NSA page with full directions:
http://www.nsa.gov/careers/opportunities_4_u/students/stokes.shtml
Monday, November 2, 2009
Darned @#$% online common college application
Darned @#$% online common college application. Had to try uploading essays 6 times on 2 different computers and then the font won't print on the printer. Never had problems like this with paper applications in the good old days.... And NOW I figure out CSS profile for Brown is due same day as the app, even though FAFSA isn't due until Jan. Santa Clara doesn't need it for 2 more weeks. Got Villanova in too. MIT requires a whole another application kudos if you got your MIT app in early.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Enthusiastic about NYU Fieldwork!
NYU (New York University) sends out a newspaper sized flyer to parents, and another one to students. This one caught my eye:
.. enrolled at NYU's Silver school of Social Work, hopes her field placement will confirm that she has what it will take to succeed as a social worker. "I am doing a field placement as a student social worker with the Institute for Community Living's SPOT program, which is in the Specialized Outreach Team"... "Our consumers are HIV positive, mentally ill, or substance abusing, and they are noncompliant with with their medication. I want to devote my life to HIV/AIDS education and awareness and to helping those who have already been infected. My field placement with SPOT is a wonderful fit. It has confirmed for me that I've chosen the right career path and that I'll be a compassionate, caring social worker".
Wow. What enthusiasm. And some parents are scared of their kids going into the military???
The gigs with the United Nations, Macy's world class hotels and Saturday Night Live sound a lot more fun, and they do claim a 92 percent employment and professional school placement rate.
\priv\2009\10
.. enrolled at NYU's Silver school of Social Work, hopes her field placement will confirm that she has what it will take to succeed as a social worker. "I am doing a field placement as a student social worker with the Institute for Community Living's SPOT program, which is in the Specialized Outreach Team"... "Our consumers are HIV positive, mentally ill, or substance abusing, and they are noncompliant with with their medication. I want to devote my life to HIV/AIDS education and awareness and to helping those who have already been infected. My field placement with SPOT is a wonderful fit. It has confirmed for me that I've chosen the right career path and that I'll be a compassionate, caring social worker".
Wow. What enthusiasm. And some parents are scared of their kids going into the military???
The gigs with the United Nations, Macy's world class hotels and Saturday Night Live sound a lot more fun, and they do claim a 92 percent employment and professional school placement rate.
\priv\2009\10
Monday, October 26, 2009
MIT Admissions Blog goes to the Obama Speech
Go here for pictures.
Here's the text
"If the Obama were a unit of measure . . . "
Wait, have you heard? I mean, it's only been published all over the MIT homepage, in three or four different blog entries, all over the news, and is the talk of campus. . . President Obama came and visited on Friday(!), giving an address on clean energy. As prestigious as MIT is, and as brilliant as some of the professors are, we still get super excited when something like this happens (kind of equivalent to when famous baseball players ask for autographs from the people they're playing against).
The announcement was on Tuesday, with MIT only finding out about the visit the weekend before. MIT went into scramble mode, which is always fun to watch. It doesn't go into scramble mode very often, the only other times I've seen it are immediately prior to CPW and before the Dalai Lama came and visited. Scramble mode, if you'll let me draw another comparison, is like when you have 10 minutes before your parents come upstairs to check to see if you cleaned your room. MIT was repairing buildings, pressure washing everything in sight, replacing windows, emptying stores of hazardous chemicals, and beautifying MIT just as fast as they possibly could.
All of this was fine and good, and I kind of enjoyed watching how MIT prioritized what was being cleaned where (you could pretty much predict the route Obama was going to take based on how clean the sidewalk was), but I expected that to be the most of my Obama-Visit-Experience. Word on the street was that MIT, as an entire institute, had received 200 tickets to allocate however they saw fit. That means all of the faculty, administration, undergraduates, and graduate students had to share 200 tickets. In the end, 50 of those tickets went to undergraduates, typically those who are doing some kind of work with energy or that deans felt would benefit the most from Obama's address. Needless to say, the MechE student who doesn't have a UROP and would rather build toys than wind farms was not chosen for a ticket.
So that was that, I'd stalk around and try to get some money shots of snipers and motorcades but in terms of actually seeing the president speak, it was a no go. That is, until I realized I worked for the Admissions office. Hmmmmm, I write for a website that prospective students read so that they can see what cool opportunities await them at MIT. This seems like a cool opportunity . . . I smell a PRESS PASS!
Turns out, Jess had a similar idea, and both of us e-mailed the powers at be (Dave) and asked if we could have press passes. 2 days and many strings pulled later, guess who had tickets to the address! WEEEEE!
Seriously. This was cool stuff. Everybody all over campus was abuzz about how only 50 students were going to be chosen and complaining about how more should be invited etc, and now all of a sudden I was going to see the President! On Thursday evening, the evening before Obama arrived, the Secret Service and Security had taken over MIT. All of the garbage cans from around Kresge (the auditorium) were trucked off, all the manholes and steam vents were welded shut (seriously) and tons of other invisible-to-me security measures were enacted.
Friday morning I woke up at 7:00 after having gone to bed at 4:30 (PSETs are brutal). I dressed nicely and headed to lab to get some work done before the big event. I made sure to bring my ticket with me:
On my way to campus I noticed that it was a little more difficult this morning, difficult enough that they provided signs.
and had everything blocked off with cones
I spent some time in lab, built some yoyos (my team is getting REALLY excited about these yoyos, they're actually coming out how we expected, and we're 2 weeks ahead of all the other teams), and then went to get in line. The ticket told me to get in line at 10:30AM. I got there at 10:00AM and what did it look like?
Yeah. I was like, last. Ok, I'm last in every line that I join, but you know what I mean.
Time went fast, luckily enough, because eavesdropping on people attending an Obama address is AWESOME! Let's see, the guy in front of me helped design Fenway park, somebody behind me appeared to know every single congressman ever, and so on and so forth. I was standing next to Julia '13, who also got a ticket (one of the 50, as a freshman!), and we chatted about how we were totally out of our element, about how excited we were, about security, about whether we were going to see Marine 1 or a motorcade, etc.
Oh, speaking of snipers, we spotted this guy chilling on the Z-center.
What's that black dot?
Ah. Sniper. Gotcha.
Eventually we wound our way into the auditorium (after three ticket checks) and towards the metal detector. The metal detector was relatively routine, until they saw my smartpen*. You see, the plan was to make a pencast of the address, taking digital notes and recording Obama's voice on my pen. Guess what the Secret Service had never heard of before. My pen. I had to explain what it did, let them pass it around (almost gave them a demo), and eventually they cleared it. I didn't beep so I didn't get frisked or wanded, and then Julia and I headed inside. We saw a bunch of empty seats up front that we immediately headed for, only to realize that we weren't nearly special enough to sit in those seats.
We ended up about 7 rows back and on the right side of the auditorium. It was 10:30. The speech started at 12:30. We weren't allowed to leave. We didn't know anybody. What's one to do? Take pictures and wander of course. I wanted to hobnob with the important people but I'm pretty sure they didn't want to talk to me. Professor Sadoway was a little less afraid, standing up at the front with the senators and mayors, presumably talking about his research.
I feel like this is the "Ok, which multi-millionaire can I tell about my battery research next?" look.
Then I took some pictures of the scene around me. The first thing I noticed, surprisingly, was the amount of room the news cameras took up.
No wonder they couldn't invite more than 200 people from MIT, 200 more seats were taken up by cameras! Sam Range '13 (my prefrosh for CPW last year) is a photographer for The Tech and was forced to hang out behind all of the video cameras in the roped off area. He got some good pictures though, I'll show you one later.
Next was the stage, all decked out for the occasion.
The flags all looked identical, and the lady next to me told me the trick. They put a coat hanger up inside the flags at the top to give them similar angles, and then tape the back of the flag to the flag pole so they all lay flat. Betcha didn't know that! The shrubberies were a nice touch, but we couldn't figure out what those black screens were for, flanking the podium. The nearest we could figure, Secret Service was just laying behind them, waiting for something bad to happen so they could jump up and go all ninja on everybody. Makes sense, right? Right.
After two hours of waiting, I made my way to my seat. A lady came out onto the stage, was introduced, and sang the National Anthem (very well) and we all cheered, remaining on our feet. We stood there awkwardly for about 2 minutes, completely silent, expecting the President to be announced, but nothing happened. Eventually the sound guys played the same classical music they'd been playing for the last two hours and we all laughed and sat down for another 15-20 minutes. Soon a man came out and put the seal on the front of the podium, and we all got quiet again, expecting something to happen. False alarm.
After some more waiting and more classical music (and talking about MIT Admissions with the woman next to me, who knows somebody applying this year), a side door opened and some bigwigs came in, including the governor and the mayor. Everybody clapped really loudly, this must be it! Then, from the other side of the auditorium, my side (like, 20 feet in front of me), John Kerry walked in.
So, the thing about John Kerry is that, well, he looks EXACTLY like John Kerry. No joke, it's like "Hey! That's the guy from JibJab!"
Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!
The gravity of this whole thing kind of clicked in when I saw John Kerry. He's an important guy, and he's just standing right there! Like, RIGHT there, in front of me. I could throw my cell phone at him and hit him (it'd be the last thing I ever did, but I could have!).
Then, all of a sudden, we heard it. A voice, as if from god, saying: "Now, introducing our speaker, the President of -- MIT, Susan Hockfield!" False Alarm AGAIN! No offense Mrs. Hockfield, but you weren't the most important president in the room right then.
Susan Hockfield came up and gave a nice introduction, welcoming us, and then said "It is my great pleasure to introduce -- Professor Moniz!"
GAH! Another False Alarm! I couldn't take much more! Finally, FINALLY, Professor Moniz said "And now, the President of the United States, Barack Obama!" (not an exact quote, but you get the idea). The room roared and leaped professionally to its feet.
There he was. Barack Obama strolled across the stage. Our stage. The stage that we put a moonbounce on just for kicks. The stage that I've stood on dozens of times. The stage that was presently 30 feet away from me. The President. GAH! You can feel it, you know, when he walks on stage. For some reason it becomes immediately obvious just how important this guy is, he's in charge of our country. Country, as in all the people I've ever met.
He began his speech the way most do, and I'll save you the specifics because I took notes and you can listen to it yourself. I will take the opportunity to show you a picture I took of Obama with my very own camera. That's right, the President is in my camera.
and here's the picture Sam Range took.
His is, um, better. But mine looks more amateur (which = real).
So go ahead and listen to his speech, or at least the first several lines when he rags on Harvard and praises MIT hackers (score++).
You'll want to skip ahead to about 27 minutes into this pencast. I paused the pen during recording, which apparently just inserts silence into the recording, which a stupid implementation that Livescribe needs to fix. Anyway, wait for it to buffer about halfway and then either click the word "Introducing" in the top left or drag the slider to the 27:00 mark.
Live from President Obama's Clean Energy Address at MIT
brought to you by Livescribe
And like that, it was all over. Obama left on the left side of the stage and headed down the front row, shaking hands with all of the important people on his way out. This was going to be the chance when I could get closest to him, and I had a mission.
Mission? Allow me to explain. The floor I live on at MIT has this silly little tradition of assigning units of measure to people, units that measure something that person is known for. For example, 1 Snively is equivalent to 1 byte wasted on the Internet. A Tang is a measure of orthogonality to normal conversation (meaning 90 degrees of Tang will sever a conversation clean in two, creating a really uncomfortable silence) and an Itani is the unit of negative tact (meaning if you are tactless, you get 1 Itani). You can read more about the origins of this tradition here. Several years ago, ex-blogger Sam Maurer '07 visited the set of the Colbert Report and decided that he should ask Stephen Colbert what his unit was. The fact that he actually asked Stephen Colbert, in person, is somewhat legendary.
Now, I was about to be in the same room as the President of the United States. There was no WAY I was leaving that room without asking President Obama what his unit would measure. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but it was going to, and it might involve scolding by important members of the audience and the Secret Service, but once in a lifetime opportunities only come once.
So, as I said, Obama was going to walk right in front of me. I pushed my way up to the second row of seats but was way too short for Obama to see me, so in the words of James '11, I went in "guns blazing." I climbed onto the armrests of the chairs and stood about 3 feet above everybody else. Obama was RIGHT there! I struck:
"PRESIDENT OBAMA!" I screamed, "PRESIDENT OBAMA!"
he looked at me.
"IF THE OBAMA WERE A UNIT OF MEASURE, WHAT WOULD IT MEASURE???"
he smiled and shook somebody's hand. Every around me laughed and told me it was an awesome question and that I should try asking again. Obama was getting closer to the door, I only had one more chance.
"PRESIDENT OBAMA!"
he looked at me and said "Hi!"
Totally unfazed by the fact that Barack Obama had just said "Hi" to me, I tried again.
"IF THE OBAMA WERE A UNIT OF MEASURE, WHAT WOULD IT MEASURE!?"
he just smiled again. And then he was gone. And then I got tapped on the leg. I looked down and a member of the MIT event staff looked up at me.
"Secret Service is going to ask you to get down." This I knew, so I got down off the chairs and stopped making a scene. Those people who have met me know that I can be very loud when necessary, so anybody within a 30 foot radius of me had heard me yelling at the President (and seen me because I was standing on chairs). I'm pretty sure I had instantly been flagged by Secret Service and they were on their way over. Sure enough, once I was on the ground, I was met by my favorite humor-less suited friends.
"Next time please stay on the ground."
"Ok." I said. Sure. Next time. Next time I'm that close to the President I'll make sure not to climb on chairs. Roger. is what I thought.
So, the verdict on Obama's unit? Unless he officially rebukes this and offers an alternative unit, the official unit of Obama is equivalent to "Smiling at somebody and subsequently completely ignoring them." If you hear somebody, smile at them, and then ignore one, you've earned 1 Obama.
The end! I mean, after that I grabbed some lunch and went to lab to crank out yoyos.
A once in a lifetime opportunity to be sure. It's not every day that you get to see snipers, the President, and he says hi to you while you make a scene and draw the gazes of all the Secret Service agents in the room. But it was a good day. A gooooooood day.
*According to new revisions to section 255.5 of the FTC Guides Governing Endorsements and Testimonials, I'm obliged to inform you that I'm currently employed as a marketer by Livescribe, manufacturer of the Pulse Smartpen. You are so informed.
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Here's the text
"If the Obama were a unit of measure . . . "
Wait, have you heard? I mean, it's only been published all over the MIT homepage, in three or four different blog entries, all over the news, and is the talk of campus. . . President Obama came and visited on Friday(!), giving an address on clean energy. As prestigious as MIT is, and as brilliant as some of the professors are, we still get super excited when something like this happens (kind of equivalent to when famous baseball players ask for autographs from the people they're playing against).
The announcement was on Tuesday, with MIT only finding out about the visit the weekend before. MIT went into scramble mode, which is always fun to watch. It doesn't go into scramble mode very often, the only other times I've seen it are immediately prior to CPW and before the Dalai Lama came and visited. Scramble mode, if you'll let me draw another comparison, is like when you have 10 minutes before your parents come upstairs to check to see if you cleaned your room. MIT was repairing buildings, pressure washing everything in sight, replacing windows, emptying stores of hazardous chemicals, and beautifying MIT just as fast as they possibly could.
All of this was fine and good, and I kind of enjoyed watching how MIT prioritized what was being cleaned where (you could pretty much predict the route Obama was going to take based on how clean the sidewalk was), but I expected that to be the most of my Obama-Visit-Experience. Word on the street was that MIT, as an entire institute, had received 200 tickets to allocate however they saw fit. That means all of the faculty, administration, undergraduates, and graduate students had to share 200 tickets. In the end, 50 of those tickets went to undergraduates, typically those who are doing some kind of work with energy or that deans felt would benefit the most from Obama's address. Needless to say, the MechE student who doesn't have a UROP and would rather build toys than wind farms was not chosen for a ticket.
So that was that, I'd stalk around and try to get some money shots of snipers and motorcades but in terms of actually seeing the president speak, it was a no go. That is, until I realized I worked for the Admissions office. Hmmmmm, I write for a website that prospective students read so that they can see what cool opportunities await them at MIT. This seems like a cool opportunity . . . I smell a PRESS PASS!
Turns out, Jess had a similar idea, and both of us e-mailed the powers at be (Dave) and asked if we could have press passes. 2 days and many strings pulled later, guess who had tickets to the address! WEEEEE!
Seriously. This was cool stuff. Everybody all over campus was abuzz about how only 50 students were going to be chosen and complaining about how more should be invited etc, and now all of a sudden I was going to see the President! On Thursday evening, the evening before Obama arrived, the Secret Service and Security had taken over MIT. All of the garbage cans from around Kresge (the auditorium) were trucked off, all the manholes and steam vents were welded shut (seriously) and tons of other invisible-to-me security measures were enacted.
Friday morning I woke up at 7:00 after having gone to bed at 4:30 (PSETs are brutal). I dressed nicely and headed to lab to get some work done before the big event. I made sure to bring my ticket with me:
On my way to campus I noticed that it was a little more difficult this morning, difficult enough that they provided signs.
and had everything blocked off with cones
I spent some time in lab, built some yoyos (my team is getting REALLY excited about these yoyos, they're actually coming out how we expected, and we're 2 weeks ahead of all the other teams), and then went to get in line. The ticket told me to get in line at 10:30AM. I got there at 10:00AM and what did it look like?
Yeah. I was like, last. Ok, I'm last in every line that I join, but you know what I mean.
Time went fast, luckily enough, because eavesdropping on people attending an Obama address is AWESOME! Let's see, the guy in front of me helped design Fenway park, somebody behind me appeared to know every single congressman ever, and so on and so forth. I was standing next to Julia '13, who also got a ticket (one of the 50, as a freshman!), and we chatted about how we were totally out of our element, about how excited we were, about security, about whether we were going to see Marine 1 or a motorcade, etc.
Oh, speaking of snipers, we spotted this guy chilling on the Z-center.
What's that black dot?
Ah. Sniper. Gotcha.
Eventually we wound our way into the auditorium (after three ticket checks) and towards the metal detector. The metal detector was relatively routine, until they saw my smartpen*. You see, the plan was to make a pencast of the address, taking digital notes and recording Obama's voice on my pen. Guess what the Secret Service had never heard of before. My pen. I had to explain what it did, let them pass it around (almost gave them a demo), and eventually they cleared it. I didn't beep so I didn't get frisked or wanded, and then Julia and I headed inside. We saw a bunch of empty seats up front that we immediately headed for, only to realize that we weren't nearly special enough to sit in those seats.
We ended up about 7 rows back and on the right side of the auditorium. It was 10:30. The speech started at 12:30. We weren't allowed to leave. We didn't know anybody. What's one to do? Take pictures and wander of course. I wanted to hobnob with the important people but I'm pretty sure they didn't want to talk to me. Professor Sadoway was a little less afraid, standing up at the front with the senators and mayors, presumably talking about his research.
I feel like this is the "Ok, which multi-millionaire can I tell about my battery research next?" look.
Then I took some pictures of the scene around me. The first thing I noticed, surprisingly, was the amount of room the news cameras took up.
No wonder they couldn't invite more than 200 people from MIT, 200 more seats were taken up by cameras! Sam Range '13 (my prefrosh for CPW last year) is a photographer for The Tech and was forced to hang out behind all of the video cameras in the roped off area. He got some good pictures though, I'll show you one later.
Next was the stage, all decked out for the occasion.
The flags all looked identical, and the lady next to me told me the trick. They put a coat hanger up inside the flags at the top to give them similar angles, and then tape the back of the flag to the flag pole so they all lay flat. Betcha didn't know that! The shrubberies were a nice touch, but we couldn't figure out what those black screens were for, flanking the podium. The nearest we could figure, Secret Service was just laying behind them, waiting for something bad to happen so they could jump up and go all ninja on everybody. Makes sense, right? Right.
After two hours of waiting, I made my way to my seat. A lady came out onto the stage, was introduced, and sang the National Anthem (very well) and we all cheered, remaining on our feet. We stood there awkwardly for about 2 minutes, completely silent, expecting the President to be announced, but nothing happened. Eventually the sound guys played the same classical music they'd been playing for the last two hours and we all laughed and sat down for another 15-20 minutes. Soon a man came out and put the seal on the front of the podium, and we all got quiet again, expecting something to happen. False alarm.
After some more waiting and more classical music (and talking about MIT Admissions with the woman next to me, who knows somebody applying this year), a side door opened and some bigwigs came in, including the governor and the mayor. Everybody clapped really loudly, this must be it! Then, from the other side of the auditorium, my side (like, 20 feet in front of me), John Kerry walked in.
So, the thing about John Kerry is that, well, he looks EXACTLY like John Kerry. No joke, it's like "Hey! That's the guy from JibJab!"
Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!
The gravity of this whole thing kind of clicked in when I saw John Kerry. He's an important guy, and he's just standing right there! Like, RIGHT there, in front of me. I could throw my cell phone at him and hit him (it'd be the last thing I ever did, but I could have!).
Then, all of a sudden, we heard it. A voice, as if from god, saying: "Now, introducing our speaker, the President of -- MIT, Susan Hockfield!" False Alarm AGAIN! No offense Mrs. Hockfield, but you weren't the most important president in the room right then.
Susan Hockfield came up and gave a nice introduction, welcoming us, and then said "It is my great pleasure to introduce -- Professor Moniz!"
GAH! Another False Alarm! I couldn't take much more! Finally, FINALLY, Professor Moniz said "And now, the President of the United States, Barack Obama!" (not an exact quote, but you get the idea). The room roared and leaped professionally to its feet.
There he was. Barack Obama strolled across the stage. Our stage. The stage that we put a moonbounce on just for kicks. The stage that I've stood on dozens of times. The stage that was presently 30 feet away from me. The President. GAH! You can feel it, you know, when he walks on stage. For some reason it becomes immediately obvious just how important this guy is, he's in charge of our country. Country, as in all the people I've ever met.
He began his speech the way most do, and I'll save you the specifics because I took notes and you can listen to it yourself. I will take the opportunity to show you a picture I took of Obama with my very own camera. That's right, the President is in my camera.
and here's the picture Sam Range took.
His is, um, better. But mine looks more amateur (which = real).
So go ahead and listen to his speech, or at least the first several lines when he rags on Harvard and praises MIT hackers (score++).
You'll want to skip ahead to about 27 minutes into this pencast. I paused the pen during recording, which apparently just inserts silence into the recording, which a stupid implementation that Livescribe needs to fix. Anyway, wait for it to buffer about halfway and then either click the word "Introducing" in the top left or drag the slider to the 27:00 mark.
Live from President Obama's Clean Energy Address at MIT
brought to you by Livescribe
And like that, it was all over. Obama left on the left side of the stage and headed down the front row, shaking hands with all of the important people on his way out. This was going to be the chance when I could get closest to him, and I had a mission.
Mission? Allow me to explain. The floor I live on at MIT has this silly little tradition of assigning units of measure to people, units that measure something that person is known for. For example, 1 Snively is equivalent to 1 byte wasted on the Internet. A Tang is a measure of orthogonality to normal conversation (meaning 90 degrees of Tang will sever a conversation clean in two, creating a really uncomfortable silence) and an Itani is the unit of negative tact (meaning if you are tactless, you get 1 Itani). You can read more about the origins of this tradition here. Several years ago, ex-blogger Sam Maurer '07 visited the set of the Colbert Report and decided that he should ask Stephen Colbert what his unit was. The fact that he actually asked Stephen Colbert, in person, is somewhat legendary.
Now, I was about to be in the same room as the President of the United States. There was no WAY I was leaving that room without asking President Obama what his unit would measure. I didn't know how it was going to happen, but it was going to, and it might involve scolding by important members of the audience and the Secret Service, but once in a lifetime opportunities only come once.
So, as I said, Obama was going to walk right in front of me. I pushed my way up to the second row of seats but was way too short for Obama to see me, so in the words of James '11, I went in "guns blazing." I climbed onto the armrests of the chairs and stood about 3 feet above everybody else. Obama was RIGHT there! I struck:
"PRESIDENT OBAMA!" I screamed, "PRESIDENT OBAMA!"
he looked at me.
"IF THE OBAMA WERE A UNIT OF MEASURE, WHAT WOULD IT MEASURE???"
he smiled and shook somebody's hand. Every around me laughed and told me it was an awesome question and that I should try asking again. Obama was getting closer to the door, I only had one more chance.
"PRESIDENT OBAMA!"
he looked at me and said "Hi!"
Totally unfazed by the fact that Barack Obama had just said "Hi" to me, I tried again.
"IF THE OBAMA WERE A UNIT OF MEASURE, WHAT WOULD IT MEASURE!?"
he just smiled again. And then he was gone. And then I got tapped on the leg. I looked down and a member of the MIT event staff looked up at me.
"Secret Service is going to ask you to get down." This I knew, so I got down off the chairs and stopped making a scene. Those people who have met me know that I can be very loud when necessary, so anybody within a 30 foot radius of me had heard me yelling at the President (and seen me because I was standing on chairs). I'm pretty sure I had instantly been flagged by Secret Service and they were on their way over. Sure enough, once I was on the ground, I was met by my favorite humor-less suited friends.
"Next time please stay on the ground."
"Ok." I said. Sure. Next time. Next time I'm that close to the President I'll make sure not to climb on chairs. Roger. is what I thought.
So, the verdict on Obama's unit? Unless he officially rebukes this and offers an alternative unit, the official unit of Obama is equivalent to "Smiling at somebody and subsequently completely ignoring them." If you hear somebody, smile at them, and then ignore one, you've earned 1 Obama.
The end! I mean, after that I grabbed some lunch and went to lab to crank out yoyos.
A once in a lifetime opportunity to be sure. It's not every day that you get to see snipers, the President, and he says hi to you while you make a scene and draw the gazes of all the Secret Service agents in the room. But it was a good day. A gooooooood day.
*According to new revisions to section 255.5 of the FTC Guides Governing Endorsements and Testimonials, I'm obliged to inform you that I'm currently employed as a marketer by Livescribe, manufacturer of the Pulse Smartpen. You are so informed.
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