Fall, 2012
Rio Hondo College Honors Transfer Program
What’s Up With Honors?
Rio Honors Students Past & Present Shine
Special points of interest:
 Congratulations to
Honors Faculty & New
Administrators
 Information on TAP
Day at UCLA
 How to Use Summer
to Improve Your
Transfer Chances
 How to search Access
Rio for Honors
Classes
Honors Coordinator
Colin Young
cyoung@riohondo.edu
Phone: 562-463-7339
Office: A-221A
Honors Counselor
Martha De La Mora
mdelamora@riohondo.edu
Phone: 562-463-3410
Office: SS 160
Check us out on the web at
www.riohondo.edu/honors
It was another extremely successful year
for Rio Hondo Honors
graduates, both past
and present. English
major and 4.0 GPA
student Seol Hee Cho
was awarded the prestigious $5000 TAP
scholarship for the
2012-13 school year
by UCLA. New UCLA
Bruins Viviana Gordo
and Min Liang participated this summer at
the Transfer Summer
Program at UCLA while
fellow incoming juniors
and Bruins Cindy Puga
and Laura-Elena Garza
were participants in
SMDEP (Summer Medical & Dental Education
Program). A number of
alumni from several
years ago also had no-
table accomplishments
this year. UCLA transfer Ali Valenzuela was
highlighted in the Summer 2012 UCLA College Report, as he recently completed his
Ph.D. in Political Science at Stanford University. Dr. Valenzuela
was then hired as an
Assistant Professor of
Political Science at
Princeton University.
To the north, UC Berkeley senior and ethnic
studies major Carolyn
Vera was named to the
Dean’s List and
awarded a prestigious
fellowship for graduate
studies. Back at UCLA,
Jared Lodico, a former
Rio Hondo Honors student and recipient of
both the UCLA TAP
Scholarship and the
JPLUS Scholar Award
from JPL graduated
and is beginning his
Ph.D. in Physics. This
is just a small sampling
of the many success
stories produced by the
Honors Transfer Program. Congratulations
go out to all the hard
working graduates of
the Honors Transfer
Program and the people who assisted them,
including faculty, family, friends, and fellow
Honors students. We
hope to highlight even
more success stories in
our next newsletter!
E-mail Colin or Martha
with your success stories so we can highlight
you in the newsletter!
Join the Honors Transfer Society
The Honors Transfer Society is an oncampus club for members of the honors program. The main purpose of
the club is to facilitate communication between students and faculty to
assist students in the transfer process by sponsoring on and off campus
activities. It also happens to be a lot
of fun! Students wishing to join HTS
are required to have a 3.0 GPA. The
HTS participates in many on-campus
activities including RiOlympics, Club
Scene, pizza
sales, sponsoring
blood drives, etc.
We have also
developed a relationship with Mills
Elementary
School whereby
members of HTS
volunteer their
time at the school
assisting stu-
dents who are struggling
with their reading skills.
Much of our club leadership from the last few
years has transferred, so
if you would like to join
or even lead the club,
please come to our
meetings this semester
on Mondays at 3PM in
A225. Hope to see you
there!
P AGE 2
WHAT’ S UP WI TH H ONOR S?
Counselor’s Corner by Martha De La Mora
How will you spend next
?
It is not too soon to start planning.
Some students choose to take courses in the summer, either to remediate a level, repeat a “D” or
“F” grade, or to get ahead. This is a great idea.
Some students choose to work (if you do, I recommend looking into a job that is in the field that you
eventually want to be in). Although you may not
start out as the president of the company, you will
be in an environment where you can observe the
various positions available. This is great for helping you decide on a major that can lead you to your
goal.
Some students choose to travel. Travel allows you
to find relevance to information that you read
about in your classes. As others have stated, “It
brings things to life,” and “the world is your classroom.”
Another great way to spend your summer time is to
look into participating in a special program. There
are many such programs available and you may
want to plan ahead since there will be applications
required.
One such program that two Rio Hondo students
took part in for the summer of 2012 was SMDEP,
Summer Medical and Dental Education Program.
The program included a stipend, had expenses
paid, and allowed for a 6-week stay in the dorms.
UC Irvine has a program that allows you to earn
credit for a college class in just a few weeks. It is
an intensive experience where you get to live on
campus for 10 days. You can check on those and
other opportunities through our Transfer Center
early in the spring semester.
UCLA has various programs including TSP
(Transfer Summer Program), SMDEP,
(Summer Medical and
Dental Education Program), STEM (Science,
Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics) and
SITE (Summer Intensive
Transfer Experience) to
name a few. Look at the
descriptions for the TSP
and all of the various
SITE programs on the
CCCP website.
There are other programs both at the state
and national level.
Summer 2012
special program participants include:
Min Liang in TSP @
UCLA
Viviana Gordo in TSP@
UCLA
Laura-Elena Garza &
Cindy Puga participated
in SMDEP @ UCLA
Miguel Meza is a preparing to become a Chemical Engineering major
and did a research program in Illinois through
NSF. (National Science
Foundation)
Check out these links.
Some of the descriptions are taken from
their websites.
www.cccp.ucla.edu
Find out about many
summer programs as
well as the CCCP Scholars Program.
The Center for Community College Partnerships
is responsible for developing and strengthening
academic partnerships
between UCLA and California community colleges, particularly those
with large underrepresented student populations
www.SMDEP.org
Summer Medical and
Dental Education Program (SMDEP) is a FREE
(full tuition, housing,
and meals) six-week
summer academic enrichment program that
offers freshman and
sophomore college students intensive and personalized medical and
dental school preparation.
Whatever you decide to
do for summer, make it
a point to reserve some
special “Me” time. This
will let you come back in
the fall refreshed, with a
clear mind, ready to
tackle the fall load.
New Math Course
Created
In our increasing efforts to tie Honors and
the new MESA Program
closer together, Honors
Calculus (Math 190H)
was offered for the first
time this Fall. We hope
this will be just one
step in the expansion
of course offerings for
Honors students in
both math and the sciences.
FALL 2012
P AGE 3
Honors Program Wishes a Happy Retirement to Faculty
Two Rio Hondo faculty
members closely associated with the Honors
Transfer Program are
enjoying or will soon be
enjoying retirement.
Astronomy Professor
Dewayne Highfill will be
retiring at the end of
this semester after a
35 year run at Rio
Hondo College. Professor Highfill has long
been the instructor of
Astronomy 110H, Gen-
eral Astronomy, a popular class offering
among many Honors
students. Joining
Dewayne in retirement
is Nancy Maffris. Professor Maffris served
as a Professor and
Counselor at Rio Hondo
for the past twenty-five
years and formally retired from her full-time
duties at the end of the
Spring 2012 semester.
She has counseled
hundreds if not thousands of students in her time at
Rio Hondo and will still be a key component of both the
college and Honors Transfer Program. Nancy will be assisting our
full-time Honors Counselor, Martha De La Mora, by meeting with
new Honors students two days a
week in her new role as a parttime counselor. Thank you to
Dewayne and Nancy for their years
of dedicated service to both Rio
Hondo and the Honors Transfer
Program and we wish them both
the best in retirement!
Nancy Maffris
Rio Hondo Welcomes a New President and Vice President
While Rio Hondo celebrates its 50th anniversary as a college this
school year, two longtime employees received promotions with
the naming of Teresa
Dreyfuss as Interim
President/
Superintendent of the
college and Dr. Kenn
Pierson as the Vice
President of Academic
Affairs. Ms. Dreyfuss
began in her new position on July 1st after 25
years of service at the
college, including her
still current role of Vice
President of Business
and Finance. In that
role, President Dreyfuss
has been able to stave
off cuts to our Honors
course offerings despite
the increasingly dire
state of California com-
munity college funding. Dr. Kenn Pierson was named
Vice President of Academic Affairs on August 9th after
six weeks as Interim Vice
President. Dr. Pierson served
as the Dean of Communications and Languages from
2008-12 and was arguably
the biggest champion for
Honors courses at Rio Hondo
College. A former English
and Literature Professor at
Rio Hondo, Dr. Pierson is a
former Honors instructor and
as Dean oversaw a Division
with multiple Honors offerings in areas ranging from English to Literature to
Spanish. In his role as Vice President, Dr. Pierson
oversees the functioning of the Honors Transfer Program. Congratulations to Ms. Dreyfuss and Dr. Pierson on their promotions!
Requirements to Complete the Honors Transfer Program
1. Attend an honors orientation before or
during the first semester you take honors classes.
2. Meet with the Honors
Counselor twice every
semester while you
are in the program.
You should meet with
the Honors Counselor three times
during the semester
in which you are
applying to schools
for transfer.
3. Earn an A or B in
English 101 or English 201.
4. Complete six honors
classes with a grade of C or better.
5. Achieve an overall GPA of at least 3.2 for all transferable courses.
6. Complete all general education courses required by
the transfer school.
7. Fulfill all prerequisites for your major required by the
transfer school.
8. Participate in an exit interview with Honors Program
staff members.
Planning to transfer to UCLA?
Attend the UCLA TAP/Transfer Conference
Friday, November 9, 2012
8:30 a.m.—3:00 p.m.
Conference details available at
www.tap.ucla.edu/conference.htm





Sign up in the Rio Hondo Transfer Center
Learn about UCLA students’ transfer experiences
Attend practical workshops
Talk with UCLA academic counselors and student
program representatives
Tour the campus
Workshops include:
 Preparing to Transfer
 Transfer Application and Selection Process
 Searching for Scholarships at UCLA
 Research Opportunities at UCLA
Visit the Transfer Center website at:
www.riohondo.edu/transfercenter
Are you proud of the work you’ve done in
your Honors classes? How would you like the
possibility of sharing what you’ve learned, gain
professional experience, and have the opportunity for awards and scholarships?
Why not consider being a presenter at the
12th annual Honors Student Research Conference, March 23, 2013 on the beautiful campus
of the University of California, Irvine? This research conference is unique in that only community college honors students are eligible to
participate. Presenting a paper at a research
conference is an incredible opportunity for you,
and it looks GREAT on your college applications.
Speak to your honors instructor about
mentoring you through the process. For more
information, contact Colin
Young, Honors Coordinator or
Martha De La Mora, Honors
Counselor. You can also visit
www.honorstcc.org for more
details.
Honors Classes Are Now Searchable on Access Rio
Until Fall 2012, it was very complicated to figure out how to find just Honors classes on Access Rio, the college’s Portal
and home to its Schedule of
Classes. Now, due to
changes made to the program, you can easily search
for Honors classes on Access Rio. Starting on November 9th, you can access
Spring 2013 Honors classes
by doing the following:
Starting with the Fall 2012
semester, follow these steps
by selecting:
1. Term: Choose the semester you want (for example,
Spring 2013)
2. Subject: Select <all>
3. Part-of-Term: Select <all>
4. Instructional Method: Select <all>
5. Instructor: Select <all>
6. Attributes: Scroll down
and select Honors
7. Sessions: Select <all>
8. Click the Search button