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COMPREHENSIVE INSTRUCTIONAL PROGRAM
REVIEW
Unit:_Honors_
Contact Person: Kathleen Sell
Due: May 15, 2009
Riverside Community College District
Office of Institutional Effectiveness
Web Resources: http://www.rccdfaculty.net/pages/programreview.jsp
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A. Mission and Relationship to the College(s)
The primary goal of the Riverside Community College Honors Program is to provide an
educational experience that allows students to stretch themselves intellectually and to
actively work with fellow students and faculty to cultivate an awareness and
understanding of the diverse points of view necessary for a rich and productive
intellectual environment. The Honors Program is committed to drawing a diverse group
of students and faculty together, one that is representative of our college community as a
whole, and providing learning opportunities and services which will prepare the students
to be competitive in reaching their future goals.
--Honors Program Mission Statement
B. History
The RCCD Honors Program has grown from serving 51 students enrolled in four honors
seminars in its first semester (Fall 2005) to serving 162 students in 12 honors seminars
with classes on all three campuses this spring 2009. And we are thrilled to have Norco
back on board—they have 18 committed students and faculty who are eager to make this
program work. Moreno Valley has 55 students and Riverside 89 enrolled in seminars this
semester. Several of these students take more than one honors seminar, so this is an
unduplicated headcount of students taking classes in the program this semester.
Riverside has 108 enrolled spaces, Moreno Valley 53, and Norco 22 this spring. In the
fall, Riverside had 111 enrolled spaces and Moreno Valley had 64 enrolled spaces.
From the outset, the Honors Program has taken the stance that not only should we seek to
nurture exceptional students at RCCD, but that we should also seek to help students
discover that they can be exceptional—the program strives to create honors students, not
just discover them. The program also seeks to provide all honors students with a rich
educational experience that will change the way they learn. To that end, honors faculty,
working with the Honors Advisory Council, have created honors seminars, with
enrollments capped at twenty students, to provide students and faculty the opportunity to
work more intimately and intensively in a discussion based learning environment where
learning happens collaboratively and collectively.
RCCD faculty and administration supported the launch of the program in the Fall of 2005
and demonstrated their commitment by providing a budget for the program and
reassigned time for the faculty coordinators at Riverside and Moreno Valley. This has
been more of a challenging issue at the Norco campus, thought they are offering 2 classes
this spring, and have a faculty coordinator who will have reassign time beginning in Fall
2009. As the budget allocation model evolves, how the budget for the Honors Programs
on each campus is embedded into allocations for each campus and is something we’ll
need to monitor closely.
The program has continued to solidify the range of course offerings, trying to be sensitive
to enrollment patterns and the needs of our students in Math/Science and Engineering as
well as in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Chemistry 1AH and 1BH were offered
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for the first time this AY 2008-2009 (in fall and spring respectively), and we now have in
place a track B for completing the Honors Program for Math/Science/Engineering
students, whose lower division preparation in the major and related areas is extensive.
We have worked with the Chemistry, Physics and Math disciplines to identify courses in
those areas that students can use to complete two of their required six honors courses.
Currently, students can use any two of the following (completed with an A or B) to help
them complete the Honors Program: Physics 2B and C; Physics 4B and C; Chemistry
12A and B; and now also Math 1C, 2, and 3. We continue to work with Biology and
Math to develop honors sections of courses and with faculty in other areas (Psychology,
Anthropology, Astronomy, etc) to continue to strengthen our math/ science offerings.
We have successfully offered an honors section of Math 12H in Spring 2008 and again
this spring 2009.
Our offerings in the Humanities and Social Sciences remain strong: English 1AH and
1BH, Art 6H, History 6H and 7H, Humanities 4H, 5H, and 10H; Political Science 1H;
Philosophy 10H; and Speech Communication 1H. We continue to dialogue among the
three campuses to ensure that our course offerings are complementary and give students
the opportunity to complete the 6 classes in honors needed to complete the program
easily within a two-year time-frame. All of the honors courses submitted so far have
successfully gained articulation and appear with the H designation on students’
transcripts, including the two most recent to gain articulation as of April 2009, Math 12H
and Geography 1H.
The Program has also worked closely with Student Services as it has grown. The
program communicates regularly with the Counseling department and the district
articulation officer and has benefited from the strong support of our Outreach Office,
Matriculation, and Institutional Research in the process of identifying eligible honors
students and reaching out to them with information about the Program and the classes and
opportunities it offers.
This spring, with Debbie DiThomas leadership and Ellen Drinkwater’s efforts, we have
made great strides towards implementing an automated process for contacting honors
students each fall and spring about the need to update their SEP. This kind of follow up
will help to ensure that the process of matriculating and transferring works smoothly and
efficiently for these students who are well able to succeed, but often struggle to navigate
the process of transfer without taking advantage of all the resources RCCD provides
them, especially in Counseling and the Transfer/Career Center.
This emphasis on program completion and on encouraging students to utilize resources to
aid in transfer is especially important in helping our students to take advantage of the
transfer agreements available to them through the Honors Program. Fall 2007 we applied
for membership in the UCLA TAP Program. In February of 2008, we were notified that
our application had been accepted, and this March 2009, the program “certified” RCCD’s
first UCLA TAP students. TAP membership is a tremendous boost for students. The
transfer admissions rate to UCLA is 30-40%; for students who apply via their honors
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program’s TAP membership, the admissions rate is 85-90 %. 1 In addition, we have
transfer agreements with UC Irvine, San Diego State University among several others
which offer special admissions and program admissions consideration for honors
students.2
The strongest aspect of the Honors Program continues to be the honors classroom where
the personalized instruction, close connection between individual honors faculty and
honors students, the community that develops in the small seminar classes among honors
students, the innovative instruction, and the advising offered by the faculty, coordinators
and designated counselors have created a positive learning experience for honors
students, as they consistently indicate in their end of term surveys and in the less formal
posts they make on the Program Facebook page. Now in our fourth year, we are getting
wonderful feedback from former RCCD honors students who are now beginning to
complete their studies at 4 year institutions and move on to professional and graduate
schools. For example, this spring we will have two RCCD Honors Program alums who
will now also be alums of UCLA, one of whom will be going on to NYU for graduate
work next fall.
One very tangible product (beyond the anecdotes our former students bring back to us) of
this seminar learning environment in which students are encouraged to develop not just
their writing skills, but their oral communication skills and work towards “the big
project,” is our students’ strong participation in both our first RCCD Honors Conference
and in the UC Irvine Building Bridges Honors Conference. Fifteen students presented
papers at our RCCD fall conference and the entire Chemistry 1AH class presented their
poster research projects. Nineteen RCCD students presented papers at this February’s
UC Irvine Building Bridges Honors Research Conference.3 Twenty-three community
colleges sent students to UC Irvine conference, with those sending the most including
East Los Angeles, El Camino, and Golden West (who each sent 20), and Riverside--we
sent 19 in just our third year participating. These conferences provide students with the
opportunity not only to share their work, but to test their mettle and build confidence.
Hands down, our students have indicated that this experience is one of the most valuable
and enriching for them.
Students have benefited from the one on one help with transfer application essays, strong
letters of recommendation that come from faculty who really know the students and their
work, enrichment activities, and the confidence that comes from having met the
challenges of the honors seminars successfully. The chance to work closely with faculty
and fellow students on developing and presenting conference papers, editing and writing
for the Honors newsletter, serving as a class advocate, and participating in presentations
to the wider college community, have all provided opportunities that honors students find
1
UCLA provided this information at the Spring 2007 TAP Council meeting and the update given orally at
the Spring 2009 meeting indicated that though admissions standards are tightening, the acceptance rate on
average for TAP students remains at approximately 85% though with the caveat that acceptance to the 12
most impacted majors is highly competitive, so slightly less in those areas and more in non-impacted
majors.
2
Please see the attached UCLA TAP acceptance letter in appendix A.
3
A copy of an insert that identifies our RCCD student presenters is in appendix B.
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both personally and practically valuable. As the program continues to grow, we are
confident that our students will continue to take advantage of these enrichment activities.
Strong administrative support has also strengthened the Honors Program. This support
has been evidenced in the continuing budget allocation, the reassigned time for
coordinators, stipends for faculty, and the clerical support (provided through the District
Associate Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs’ office). It would be helpful to have
clerical support on each campus. It has also been evidenced in the space provided for the
Program on the Riverside campus in Quad 15. The space is equipped with three
computers and printers, a conference table, seating, coffee pot/ microwave, etc and has
been a magnet for students who use the space daily. The space has really helped to create
a strong sense of community in the program. Moreno Valley has no honors office or
student space. Moreno Valley and Norco both need space to help build a sense of
community for their students in the program.
Membership in UCLA TAP and HTCC has validated and strengthened the direction the
program has taken, providing an important network of established Honors programs and
colleagues to provide experience and advice. HTCC membership has also made the
Building Bridges research conference available for our honors students, an important
enrichment to their academic work in their honors seminars. The UCLA TAP agreement
offers a tremendous boost to our students seeking to transfer to UCLA.
The Honors Program does face some challenges. The main challenge is ensuring that
honors seminars fill each semester, though a close look at the fill ratio data indicates that
more honors seminars are more consistently filling to 80% capacity and above since Fall
2007 and continuing through this spring, and during the 08-09 AY we had only 1 class
cancellation—Econ 7H at City in the fall. This cancellation was as much due to staffing
concerns as to questions about enrollment. The program continues to explore additional
ways of recruiting so as to strengthen enrollments as well as to continue to reach a
diverse group of students and adequately serve our underrepresented students. Data
shows (see appendix F) that our honors student population’s profile does not radically
differ from that of the District student profile, but some the differences that do exist
provide a clear picture of where we need to intensify outreach efforts to help maintain
and build on the diversity already evident in the honors seminars.
One area that needs to be addressed is access to non-traditional returning students, many
of whom can only take evening classes. Evening offerings have been sparse so far (just
two classes in the first year of the program). As the program continues to grow and
strengthen, we would appreciate support for increasing offerings for the non-traditional
student through the inclusion of some evening classes.
The program also continues to work on enhancing visibility within the college
community and the larger community the program serves. This will help with all other
recruiting efforts. Honors Program newsletter was distributed to the college community
at the beginning of fall term 2007 and 2008 (with another being produced this spring
2009 to go out before the end of the AY), notices have been placed in the RCCD Focus—
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an email newsletter for the college community—to highlight honors students’
achievements. During Fall 2007, presentations were made to the Board of Trustees
(November 13th) and the RCCD Foundation Associates group (October 22nd). Another
Board of Trustees presentation to provide an update on the program was given on April
21, 2009.
A faculty member in the program—Thatcher Carter—designed and launched a program
FaceBook page this fall, which has proved, in addition to the website, to be a valuable
resource for posting notices and helping current and former honors students and faculty
to stay in contact. Carol Farrar, the Norco coordinator, is working on developing a
promotional video for use by all three campuses.
These first four years of the RCCD Honors Program have been a time of
experimentation, excitement, consolidation as all those involved have been learning
together how to get the program up and running and then into a shape that is sustainable
and a continuing service for our students. The agreement with UCLA will be an
important component enabling the program to continue to grow, and it will surely help us
to attract and recruit a diverse and talented group of honors students.
C. Data Analysis and Environmental Scan
A. Course Offerings
See appendix C for course offerings and appendix D for an analysis of enrollment
management based on fill ratio data. We continue to work on ensuring that we offer
students a balanced set of offerings so they have a reasonable opportunity to complete 6
honors courses during their two years. In addition, we try to ensure that those offerings
cover a range of required general education areas.
B. Retention and Success
Although because of the small sample size to this point Institutional Research in most
cases has found not found a great many statistically significant differences between
success/ retention in honors and non-honors sections, it is quite clear nevertheless that the
honors seminars demonstrate a clear pattern of both high retention and success (see
Charts in Appendix E). As we have more semesters of data to work with, we’ll begin to
track cumulative data and percentages so that we can continue to develop our analysis.
Analysis:
Certainly the fact that students self-select into the program is likely an important factor in
the retention and success rates in the honors seminars. However, smaller class sizes, a
different learning environment, advising, a sense of community, and extra curricular
opportunities designed to enhance work in the classroom may also be important factors.
This is an area we’ll study carefully as we continue to gather data. Regardless, the
Honors Program is clearly “efficient” in the sense of retaining students and seeing them
successfully complete honors courses.
C. Demographics
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See appendix F for charts indicating Honors Program demographics (age, gender, and
ethnicity) and how these match up to the demographics of the student population of the
District as a whole. One of the initial fears expressed by some faculty about the Honors
Program was that its demographics would skew heavily towards white, female, returning
students. The demographics in fact show that the program’s student population is close
to reflecting the student population at large.
Age
As we anticipated, as the program has gained visibility, it is drawing heavily on
traditional freshman coming to us straight from high school. The statistics on age show a
significant majority of our students are in this age range, and we also are drawing a
higher number of concurrently enrolled students than the district average. Middle
College High School students and the close collaboration between the Middle College
and Honors Program can account for some of this. The outreach we have done with
local area high schools over the last three years in particular is paying off.
The numbers also point out clearly something we know we need to work on—offering
classes at a time that works better for returning students, working adults who are trying to
balance school and work. We would like to offer some evening sections of honors
classes though we must balance doing so with our need to maintain healthy enrollments.
Gender
The data here show we are very close to the District profile.
Ethnicity
The data show that here, too, we are close to the District profile. The majority of our
students are not Caucasian, and our enrollments are 30% Hispanic and 8% AfricanAmerican. We will continue outreach efforts to ensure that the Program continues to
draw a diverse student population.
Efficiency and Enrollment Management
Because RCCD Honors courses cap at 20, the question of efficiency in the Honors
Program cannot be looked at in isolation. To compare honors course efficiencies with the
standard of 525 when honors courses cap at 20 and have a limitation on enrollment based
on GPA and English 1A eligibility will provide a misleading picture. As an
interdisciplinary program, each of the courses the program offers is better seen in light of
the efficiency of that particular course and that particular discipline as a whole. The
decision to offer an honors section is made in light of the overall balance of offerings
within any given discipline.
Moreover, all honors courses have parallel non-honors courses that are typically high
demand because they fulfill basic general education requirements (we don’t offer honors
sections of specialty courses). So any look at efficiency within the program itself must be
balanced by a close look at overall course efficiency (not just Political Science 1H, but all
Political Science 1 courses). Additionally, honors courses may be looked at as “efficient”
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in an entirely different way—honors classes are small, but retention and the successful
completion rate in these classes show clearly that these classes are “efficient” in so far as
they don’t typically lose and fail students at the same rate as non-honors sections do.
To make sure the Honors Program as a whole is working with a reasonable efficiency, fill
ratios are a better indicator than other efficiency numbers. (See Appendix D for data and
analysis of fill ratios for honors classes.) The Honors Program has requested and will
now be regularly receiving the kinds of reports sent to departments/ department chairs
that provide fill ratios, etc. What would be helpful in addition, is to see comparative data
for non-honors sections of the same courses so that the program can continue to
effectively manage course offerings.
All that said, here is what the Honors Program currently does to address college wide
issues of enrollment management:

From its inception, course offerings in honors have been coordinated across the
campuses in an effort to serve the needs of the students.

Since Fall 07 (the beginning of the program’s third year) a course rotation was
implemented. The program now has a sufficient number of available honors
courses to work with to ensure that it can offer a variety of courses covering a
variety of transfer requirements each semester. So for example, rather than
offering Political Science in two consecutive semesters, the program now offers
Econ 7H in the fall and Political Science 1 in the spring. The English classes are
offered each semester because they are such high demand courses and because
they serve as a primary method of recruiting into the program (see appendix D for
fill ratios for the English classes). The program will continue to strive to offer a
variety of courses meeting various transfer requirements and will strive to balance
courses that tend to enroll at lower rates with those that typically fill very well so
that the average fill rate for the program over the course of an academic year
remains at 75% and above, a goal that the City campus has already met in each of
the four years of the program. For the past two AY, Moreno Valley has achieved
an average fill ratio over the course of the AY of 73.12% for AY 08-09 and
71.5% for AY 07-08, a significant improvement over the previous year, AY 0607, when the average rate was 57.5%. A solid slate of classes that students can
count on each semester and increased awareness of the program has helped to
bring enrollment numbers up to a consistently solid level. Norco will track this
data as it becomes available.

The program does have a course cancellation policy in place though this has been
applied somewhat flexibly in recognition that the program is still growing and
now because of the recognition that many students are attempting to complete the
required number of courses in order to be eligible for Honors Program transfer
agreements. The policy is that an honors section that doesn’t have 10 students
one week prior to the start of term will be cancelled or converted to a non-honors
section. We hope that this flexibility will continue to be granted so long as the
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average fill ratio for honors sections in a given semester / academic year is within
reasonable limits. For example, a small section might be allowed to go if
balanced by two or three other very strongly enrolled sections. In any case, the
program asks that chairs and honors faculty work closely with the Dean of
Instruction, the VP of Academic Affairs, and the Program coordinator when
making decisions about cancelling or letting an honors section go. This ensures
that students can be notified in a timely way and that enrollment management
concerns can be balanced with program integrity concerns about offering a
sufficient variety of course so students have a reasonable expectation of being
able to complete the required six courses within a two year period.

A key part of enrollment management for a program such as Honors is continued
efforts to recruit. The program has begun to solidify an annual calendar of
recruitment efforts (e.g. letters to local high school principals and counselors,
letters to students who make the Dean’s list, flyers included in the mailing that
goes from the District to all local high school students, invitations and
applications given to students in the Assessment Center in summer and winter,
etc). Each year, these efforts become more polished and thorough. This spring,
acceptance letters have begun going out to students in the program and an
information/ orientation session for new and prospective students is scheduled for
May 21rst in an effort to recruit earlier and have students ready to enroll in fall
honors classes earlier. These strategies as well as the lure of transfer agreements
are helping us work toward consistently healthy enrollment in honors sections.
We also anticipate that a weak economy and the decline in the admissions rate for
UC eligible students will provide an incentive for high school students who might
otherwise have begun college careers at four-year institutions to begin at RCCD
instead and a healthy, thriving honors program makes that an even more attractive
choice.
D. Programs and Curriculum
Available Honors Curriculum
 English 1AH
 English 1BH
 Art 6H
 (Curriculum for Chemistry 1AH and 1BH is available but not offered currently at
City, only at Moreno Valley)
 Economics 7H (not offered this past fall because of limited faculty availability to
cover all classes)
 (Curriculum for Geography 1H is available but has been only offered once at
Moreno Valley)
 History 6H
 History 7H
 Humanities 4H
 Humanities 5H
 Humanities 10H
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






Math 12H
Philosophy 10H
Political Science 1H
Political Science 2H (this course is not currently being offered; instead, we’re
focusing on the Poli Sci 1H course for the time being)
Spanish 1H and 2H (these courses are currently on hiatus since they consistently
had trouble filling—this was a decision made by the faculty member / asst. chair)
Speech Communication 1H
Speech Communication 9H (not currently being offered)
All of the honors courses submitted so far for articulation have been articulated.
E. Student Learning Outcomes Assessment (submit this section to DAC prior to
submitting the comprehensive review to the Program Review Committee).
Please contact Sheryl Tschetter (Sheryl.tschetter@rcc.edu) with questions.
Honors Program and Assessment
The RCC Honors Program has been working on assessment on three fronts:
(a) identifying learning outcomes for Honors seminars, which was critical to developing
a curriculum for the program (which meant individual faculty developing honors course
outlines and moving these through the curriculum process, which now includes a checkoff for the Honors Advisory Council for any new Honors course outlines, and moving the
courses on to Articulation—all current honors courses have been successfully articulated
as of Spring 20094). (See Appendix G for these outcomes)
(b) working to develop program (or service) outcomes for students who complete/
participate in the program
(c) working to develop a program review that aids us in addressing resource, policy,
scheduling, and other issues
As an Honors Program, the critical component of assessment that we have addressed so
far and will need to continue to address has to do with programmatic rather than course
based assessment. The challenges (and questions about the appropriateness) of course
based assessment for an Honors Program include, among other factors, the fact that
honors students don’t all take the same mix of honors courses nor the same number of
honors courses. Some take six courses and complete the program; many take fewer than
six (See Appendix F for a chart on the number of honors courses taken by students in the
program as of Spring 2008). The NCHC monograph on Assessing and Evaluating
Honors Programs has a single page in an appendix on learning outcomes assessment—
the rest of the document is devoted to programmatic assessment. Thus our focus has
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Notification that Geography 1H and Math 12H (the two most recent courses) had been successfully
articulated was provided in an April 23rd email from Judy Haugh.
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been primarily on programmatic assessment. The disciplines will be responsible for
assessing individual courses, since they are the content experts in the area.
The RCCD Honors Program gained membership to the UCLA TAP program last year,
which involved a thorough vetting of our program after completing its first two years.
The recommendations for the program that came along with the TAP membership,
though, give us some concrete program goals to work towards. This accountability to an
outside agency and adherence to nationally recognized standards, such as those
developed by the National Collegiate Honors Council (CHC) are driving much of our
early assessment efforts.5
Beyond that, we also must assess course offerings and patterns of enrollment to ensure
the program is responsive to campus and district concerns about efficiency, assess
demographics and patterns of enrollment to identify how effectively we are reaching out
to and serving a diverse student population and identify areas we need to strengthen, and
assess (to the extent possible) the value-added provided by our students’ participation in
the Honors Program measure by participation in student conferences (discussed earlier in
this document) and to the extent that we are able to gather this data, information about
where our students transfer and their success at transfer institutions. This latter is an area
that still needs a great deal of work as the only data we are able to gather at the moment is
anecdotal, soft data self-reported by students with whom we have stayed in contact.
Earlier in this program review document is an analysis of course offering, fill ratio,
student completion and success, and demographic data. This analysis will drive some of
our program goals moving forward. Below, we address assessment driven by outside
agencies (I) and plans for assessing the program based on student success after
transferring from RCCD (II). Finally, to the extent possible, we provide information in
the assessment charts about individual courses assessment based on discipline program
reviews as well as about how honors courses match up with General Education SLOs
(III).
I.
Inclusion in the UCLA TAP program required the RCCD Honors Program to submit an
extensive application and supporting documentation detailing our structure,
administrative support and budgeting, our curriculum and specific enrichment strategies,
our outreach efforts to underserved populations, and our recruitment efforts among other
things. This application was reviewed by a group that included UCLA faculty and staff
as well as faculty from other community colleges with TAP partnerships.6
Our application was accepted and we now have the TAP agreement in place for ten years
(see Appendix A for the acceptance letter and recommendations). The acceptance did
also come with recommendations for further strengthening the program, with the
5
The NCHC monograph Assessing and Evaluating Honors Programs and Honors Colleges: A Practical
Handbook is a text the program now has that has helped to shape our understanding of assessment of this
kind of program and will provide resources and examples as our assessment of the program evolves.
6
A copy of the application and supporting documents can be provided upon request.
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understanding that we would diligently work towards addressing any areas of concern
before a written mid-term report due in 2012 and a thorough self study and site visits to
review the program at each of our three campuses in 2015-1016.
Review by what is essentially an outside accrediting group for our honors program
provides a standard by which we can measure how our program performs in a number of
key areas: curriculum, student and faculty diversity, student services/ counseling support
for honors students, adequate administrative and budgetary support within each of our
institutions, vibrancy of the program as seen in the allocation of a physical space, extracurricular activities for honors students, etc. UCLA TAP along with HTCC (Honors
Transfer Council of California) and NCHC (National Collegiate Honors Council) offer
benchmarks by which we can measure the quality of the structure and curriculum of our
program. See Appendix H for HTCC membership application and criteria and Appendix
I for the NCHC statements on Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors
Program, Honors Teaching, Honors Course Design—these provide concrete guidelines
that help us to gauge how effectively our honors program and curriculum measure up to
national and local standards.7
Here are the specific UCLA recommendations:
1. At this point in the program’s development more math and science courses are needed.
It is recommended that more faculty from these disciplines be encouraged to participate
in the program and teach courses.
2. Requiring students to complete 6 honors courses may discourage students interested in
highly selective majors at UCLA since a strong GPA is required along with a high
number of major prep courses. Such students may self select out of the Honors Program
given the course load already required to fulfill major prep. This is especially a problem
for students interested in the life and physical sciences and business economics.
3. You acknowledge that 3.0 completion GPA is a bit low in comparison with other
Honors Programs. Students interested in highly selective majors will not fare well with
an overall 3.0 GPA and will need to understand how this positions them for admission.
4. Given the size of the program at least two counselors should be assigned to support
students. It is unclear as to the exact role played by the designated counselor and whether
or not she actually interacts with students in the program or serves in a more
administrative capacity, referring students to counselors who are note assigned to the
program. Are counselors who see Honors students supportive of and familiar with the
goals and requirements of the program?
5. Increased communication between the Honors Program and representatives of campus
programs devoted to support of historically underrepresented students should be a
7
All RCCD Honors Courses have separate course outlines of record. These can be viewed in Curricunet
and statements about specific enrichment strategies for each course written by honors faculty are available
in the UCLA application.
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priority. This will assist in developing strategies for increased involvement of these
students.
6. Space for the program appears limited, especially at Moreno Valley. Clerical support
resides at the District rather than the campus level. As the programs grow, this needs to
be addressed.
7. One significant area of concern is the number of courses offered for students who plan
to transfer to programs in math and science. We ask that each campus submit an update
to us in September 2012 which describes the Honors curriculum and efforts made over
the next five years to increase the number of faculty from math and science departments
who are offering honors courses. We will send you a reminder several months in
advance of this date.
Below is a description of how the Honors Program, through the Honors Advisory
Council, has used the assessment of the program provided by UCLA to work on
providing a better service to our students.
1, 2 & 7. Math and Science Courses in the Honors Program/ Number of Courses
required for Completion
During Spring 2008 and this AY, 2008-2009, the program has worked to develop a trackB for program completion. Students may use any two of the following courses towards
completion of the six classes required to complete the Honors Program:
Chemistry 12A, Organic Chemistry 1
Chemistry 12B, Organic Chemistry 2
Physics 2B, if completed with a B or better
Physics 4B, if completed with a B or better
Physics 4C, if completed with a B or better
Math 1C, 2, or 3 if completed with a B or better (just approved Spring 2009, so available
to students from this point forward)
This list was developed by consultation between the Chemistry, Physical Sciences, and
Math departments/ disciplines and the Honors Advisory Council. Biology is currently
looking into whether or not they’d like to see Biology 11 and/ or Biology 12 included
here. A biology faculty member is participating on the Honors Advisory Council, and he
is working with his discipline and the Advisory Council to find a workable solution for
offering honors biology given space and funding constraints.
Math is also currently looking into the feasibility of offering a stand alone section of
another Math class in addition to Math 12 by looking at the math placement levels of
students in the honors program, honors program eligibility of students in Math 1A
classes, and honors program eligibility of students in Math 35—the precursor class to
Math 1A. The data gathered indicates that across the district the number of students
enrolled in either MA-1A or MA-10 is 330 (Spring 09). Of this group, 146 had a GPA of
3.2 or higher, and of this group 129 met the English eligibility requirement for the
14
Honors Program.8 We hope this data will help encourage the Math discipline to begin
work on a second honors math course.
At the May 1rst Honors Advisory Council meeting, the track A and track B (now
including the Math classes) were formally adopted. (See Appendix L for the minutes
reflecting this).
3. Program Entry and Completion GPA requirements
The RCCD Honors Program’s 3.25 GPA entry requirement is consistent with many
community college Honors Programs which have entrance GPAs ranging from 3.0 to 3.5.
Our petition for admission allows the Program to address the needs of students whose
GPA is not always an accurate reflection of their capabilities or ability to benefit from the
program. The District average GPA was 2.24 for Fall 2005; 2.23 for Spring 2006 and
Fall 2007.9 Our GPA requirement, then, is a significant threshold for our students to
meet—the petition allows the program to be more inclusive and flexible. The English 1A
requirement is the one about which the program is most stringent, and must be. No
exceptions are made to this requirement because of the writing intensive nature of the
honors seminars.
The completion GPA for the program—students need to have maintained at least a 3.0
overall GPA with no lower than a C in any honors course—is a little low at 3.0. Students
are reminded that what is critical for them individually when they prepare to transfer is
the required GPA for the school/ program into which they are seeking to transfer.
What the Honors Advisory Council has begun to discuss this AY is a reversal of entry
and completion requirements—3.0 for entry, honoring our commitment to access (and we
would still have the petition available) and a higher completion requirement of 3.2. No
decisions have been made yet. The conversation is ongoing in an attempt to carefully
weigh the UCLA concerns here but also be responsive to our local needs and student
population.
4. Counseling Concerns
Requests for assigned counselors for the Honors Program are in each Annual Program
Review and we reiterate that request here.
In the meanwhile, in response to the concern that counseling services to students in the
program are not sharply defined, the program has made strides toward systematizing the
counseling services provided to students in the program. A counseling services timeline
has been developed (see Appendix J) and a notification letter to students whose SEP
hasn’t completed or is out of date has been developed and will now be sent out
automatically to students in the Honors Program through Matriculation each semester.
5. Outreach to Underserved Students
8
Data provided by Daniel Martinez and Sylvia Thomas May 1, 2009.
Source for GPA data and data in subsequent charts: Institutional Research, Daniel Martinez May 11
2007.
9
15
The program continues to have informal relationships with EOPS, DSPS, CAP, Ujima,
Renaissance Scholars, Veteran services, and Puente.
A joint project on the Riverside campus between DSPS, CAP, Ujima, Puente, the
Reading and Writing Center, Teacher Prep, Workforce Prep, EOPS and CARE, Tutorial
Services, and the Honors Program created posters, flyers, and informational brochures to
provide students with a concise overview of the many services available to them on the
campus. This effort was an example of the collaboration between the Honors Program
and other campus programs reaching out to underserved student populations.
The Honors Program is formally requesting data on numbers of students in the Honors
Program who also receive services from or participate in these areas so we can first of all
get a clearer picture of the overlap between students in our program and in these other
programs, and then continue to work on developing strategies for reaching out to
underserved populations.
6. Space and Clerical support
We are making requests through the Annual Program Review process to try to garner the
resources to address these concerns
II. Tracking Student Success
The Honors Program developed a FaceBook page during the Fall 2008 semester to
provide a means to reach out to and stay in contact with current and former students. An
exit survey to be posted to the page and the website as well as distributed to students
currently in the program but transferring in the following semester is in development.
The UCLA TAP Program will provide us with one small benchmark we can use to track
student success in so far as we will be able to track the numbers of students we certify for
the TAP Program from year to year. 2008-2009 was the first year the program was able
to certify TAP students, and we certified six.
We will continue to track data on the number of students completing the honors program
(See chart in Appendix F). One measure of our success will be to see an increase in this
number between now and our next program review cycle.
We will continue to work with Institutional Research to find ways to track student
success after leaving the Honors Program more formally. This is an area that still needs
much work.
Work is well underway on developing a Program exit survey for students. We are
soliciting a hypothesized list of what honors students perceive to be the “value added” in
taking honors seminars and participating in the Honors Program. This is being developed
by faculty. We are also drawing questions/ ideas from similar surveys done by other
Honors Programs. What we hope to accomplish is a way to capture students’ perceptions
of their experience in the program as well as data about how to stay in contact with them
so we can continue to follow their progress as they move on to their transfer institutions.
16
We will use Survey Monkey for the final document and it will be posted on the Program
website and FaceBook page. We anticipate completing and posting this survey by the
end of this AY so we can begin gathering data right away.
1. In order to help us complete the annual ACCJC report on our progress in assessing
student learning, please provide the following information by completing the form.
Please add lines as needed:
Name of Program or Course (please
list programs first)
Student learning
outcomes have
been identified
(Yes = 1
No = 0)
Outcomes
assessment
information or
data has been
generated
(Yes = 1
No = 0)
Honors Program
1
0—not at the
program level
Please note that each of these
courses have a home discipline and
are/ should be included in
individual discipline assessment
plans
Courses:
English 1AH
English 1BH
Art 6H
Humanities 4H
Humanities 5H
Humanities 10H
History 6H
History 7H
Philosophy 10H
English
Discipline is at
DAC stage 5
Art Discipline is
at DAC Stage 2
Humanities
Discipline is at
DAC Stage 4
History
Discipline is at
DAC Stage 2
Philosophy
Discipline is at
Assessment
information
or data has
been used
to improve
student
learning
(Yes = 1
No = 0)
0—not at
the
program
level
17
Political Science 1H
Math 12H
Economics 7H
Speech Com 1H
Speech Com 9H (not currently
offered
Spanish 1H (currently on hiatus)
Geography 1H
Chemistry 1AH and 1BH
DAC Stage 4
Political Science
Discipline is at
DAC Stage 2
Math Discipline
is at DAC Stage
5
Economics
Discipline is at
DAC Stage 3
Speech
Communication
Discipline at
DAC Stage 2
Chemistry
Discipline at
DAC Stage 5
2. How has your unit been engaged this past year in assessing student learning?
a. Summarize your results (whenever possible, provide documentation of student
learning in your discipline and evidence that assessment data has been
generated).
b. What did your unit learn from these results that enabled you to improve
teaching and learning in the discipline?
c. How have part-time faculty been made aware of the need to assess student
learning outcomes and been included in assessment activities?"
 The Honors Program has developed common learning outcomes for all seminars
that are embedded within the course outlines for honors classes and which are in
addition to the learning outcomes already identified for the parallel non-honors
sections of these courses.
 Three honors courses have been part of discipline based assessment projects
(English 1AH—an assessment project, English 1BH a portfolio reading group, and
Humanities 10H—an assessment project). However, in each instance specific
Honors outcomes or outcomes for honors sections were not assessed independently.
Rather the honors courses participated along with the pool of non-honors courses.
 Three honors faculty members and their classes are participating in a state-wide eportfolio pilot project begun Spring 2009: English 1BH, taught by Thatcher Carter
at Riverside, English 1AH, taught by Jeff Rhyne at Moreno Valley, and Chemistry
18
1BH, taught by Diane Marsh at Moreno Valley.
 The common course outcomes for all honors seminars are
1. Students will demonstrate enhanced oral communication skills,
increased sensitivity, dialogical openness, receptivity, willingness to
interrogate, the ability to recognize multiple valid viewpoints and engage
in authentic debate
2. Students will respond competently to more complex and sophisticated
writing assignments. They will demonstrate an ability to re-conceive their
familiar worlds in new ways, grapple with concepts that have no simple
answers, think about and grapple with complexity in their written work
3. Students will demonstrate an ability to analyze and respond to
challenging and diverse course readings, respond to these readings in
writing, and put these texts in dialogue with one another—and with
communities of interpretation (historical, personal, social, spatial)
4. Students will demonstrate a high degree of self-motivation and
intellectual independence
Fifteen RCCD students made oral presentations based on papers developed in their
honors seminars at the first annual RCCD Fall Honors conference and nineteen presented
papers at the UC Irvine Building Bridges annual Spring Honors conference, up from 11
last year and 9 in the first year we presented.10 This level of participation suggests that
many of our students are meeting the outcomes underlined above.
With all that said, the question of course-based assessment remains tricky for the program
as each of the courses in the program has a home in a discipline which is responsible for
its own course-based assessment projects and because of the diverse range of courses
offered in the program.
The program is certainly open to advice/ suggestions about how to develop a common
assessment project for honors seminars, but again, the focus has been much more on
programmatic assessment as the program has developed thus far.
3. If your SLO assessment results make clear that particular resources are needed to
more effectively serve students please be sure to describe the need here and include it
on the request forms.
Timeline for Assessing Programs (2008 – 2012)
(add rows to the chart as necessary)
10
See Appendix B for a list of student presenters and papers at the UCI conference. A conference program
for the RCCD fall conference is in Appendix….. (don’t know how to cut and paste a publisher document
into a word doc)
19
Name of
Program
Expected
Date SLOs
Identified
Mapping
course Level
SLOs to
Program
SLOs
Expected
Assessment
Methods to
Be Employed
Expected
Expected
Date
Date
Assessment Data will
Data
the
Generated Analyzed
Timeline for Assessing GE Course SLOs (2008 – 2012)
Course Name
and Number(s)
GE SLO(s) to
Be Assessed
Expected
Assessment
Methods to Be
Employed
Expected Date
Assessment
Data Generated
Expected
Date Data
will be
Analyzed
These two charts remain blank because again, our program does not clearly fit into the
discipline model that these charts are predicated upon.
That said, our honors course outcomes clearly intersect with Gen Ed outcomes on Critical
Thinking, Communication Skills, and some elements of Global Awareness along with
elements of the others depending on the specific course in question.
F. Collaboration with Other Units including Instructional, Student Services or
Administrative Units
Student Services
Counseling
The Honors Program has a designated counselor. The Program coordinator and
counselor work closely together to identify honors students who don’t have a complete or
up to date Student Education Plan (SEP). Students are provided the necessary
information to encourage them to make an appointment with a counselor. Matriculation
research validates that students with an updated SEP are more likely to persist in reaching
20
their goals; therefore, the Honors Program works with counseling to encourage all honors
students to have an updated SEP on file. The counseling services timeline in Appendix J
details what services the program provides to students.
This spring 2009, with Debbie DiThomas leadership and Ellen Drinkwater’s efforts, we
have made great strides towards implementing an automated process for contacting
honors students each fall and spring about the need to update their SEP. This kind of
follow up will help to ensure that the process of matriculating and transferring works
smoothly and efficiently for these students who are well able to succeed, but often
struggle to navigate the process of transfer without taking advantage of all the resources
RCCD provides them, especially in Counseling and the Transfer/Career Center.
Each spring, updated information packets on the program are sent to all counselors, the
coordinator has worked with counseling on adding information on the Honors Program to
the Student Handbook, the College Catalog, and the orientation presentations for all new
students.
Honors information is presently in the college catalog and student handbooks, course
offerings are listed under honors in the schedule of classes, and the program continues to
work on ways to strengthen communication with counselors about the benefits of and
requirements for the program. Please see appendix for the timeline of counseling
outreach to honors students.
Transfer Center
The Riverside Honors Coordinator also serves on the Transfer Advisory Council
Curriculum/Senate/Articulation
Policies and Procedures for approval of Honors Courses
1. Faculty develop all honors curriculum. A faculty member takes an existing general
education course and, using that as the base, writes an outline that enhances/ enriches the
original course thereby transforming it into a more creative and rigorous course. The
Honors Program Coordinators have offered workshops (Fall 2005, Spring 2006, Fall
2006, and Spring 2007) to help with the process and will continue to do so—this is an
informal level of input.
2. The Honors Advisory Council reviews the curriculum to make sure it is consistent
with the established criteria for honors classes, which include an emphasis on oral
communication, reading primary texts, and twenty pages of formal writing. As part of its
approval process, the District Curriculum Committee requires minutes from the Honors
Advisory Council for all new honors course proposals. The faculty member attaches
minutes of the Honors Advisory Council meeting at which curriculum was approved, just
as one would attach discipline meeting or other sorts of advisory body minutes. At this
point the course is ready for submission to the District Curriculum Committee.
3. The Curriculum Committee reviews the curriculum and approves it, at which point it
21
goes to the Articulation Officer.
4. Articulation Status: all of the honors courses submitted so far have successfully gained
articulation. As new courses come on board, they, too, will be submitted for articulation.
On April 23, 2009, the district articulation officer notified the Honors Coordinators/
Advisory Council that the most recently submitted courses—Geography 1H and Math
12H—were articulated and will now appear with the H designation on students’
transcripts.
Student Clubs
The Honors Program has a good working relationship with Alpha Gamma Sigma, with
whom it shares many students. The Honors Program and AGS did a joint presentation at
a Foundation Associates Luncheon on October 22, 2007 to increase the visibility of the
program and the club, and better inform the community about the ways in which the
college serves those students who are ready to perform at a rigorous academic level in
addition to providing services to our many under-prepared students. During Fall 2008,
AGS Executive Board used Quad 15, the Honors Room at the City Campus, for Tuesday
meetings. Moreno Valley is working to develop an Honors Club on campus as they don’t
currently have a chapter of AGS.
Matriculation, Information Services, Institutional Research
The program has had good support from these areas in gathering data, identifying pools
of students, and coordinating recruitment efforts including calls that go out over the
Scheduling and Reporting System, email blasts, and direct mailings.
Dean of Instruction/ Chancellor’s Office: The program has been able to include material
about Honors in mailings that go out to Dean’s List students, to Passport to College
students and to prospective students from area high schools sent out each spring by the
Chancellor.
Students with GPA below Program Requirement
Students who may be slightly below the GPA requirement may submit an appeal for
admission into the program. The coordinators have the authority to make limited
exceptions when a student’s ability to benefit from and successfully complete the
program is not accurately reflected by his or her transcripts.
Please see Appendix E to see the breakdown of our honors students in comparison to the
District in terms of gender, age, ethnic background.
G. Outreach Activities
On Campus
 A joint project on the Riverside campus between DSPS, CAP, Ujima, Puente, the
Reading and Writing Center, Teacher Prep, Workforce Prep, EOPS and CARE,
Tutorial Services, and the Honors Program created posters, flyers, and informational
brochures to provide students with a concise overview of the many services
available to them on the campus. This effort was an example of the collaboration
22
between the Honors Program and other campus programs reaching out to
underserved student populations.
 The Moreno Valley program works closely with the Middle College program on
that campus.
 Flyers about the Honors Program are included in the Dean’s List mailing that goes
out each semester.
 Applications and program information are provided to students who place into
English 1A in the Assessment Center on each campus.
Outside RCCD
 The coordinator (or representative) participates in the Counselor to Counselor day
when counselors from the high schools in our area are invited to the college to learn
about programs and services available for their students here at RCC. This past
fall, the program was represented by Tara McCarthy, as the event was scheduled off
campus during prime teaching time.
 Each fall and spring, letters are sent to every counselor and principal in the service
areas for the District with information about the RCCD Honors Program.
H. Long Term Major Resource Planning
 Moreno Valley and Norco both need permanent space for the Honors Program.
 All three campuses need counseling time, not just an honors counselor in name, but
one supported by time dedicated to the program.
 The program on each campus eventually needs on campus, local clerical support.
Because of the size of the program, the need is most pressing right now at the City
campus.
I. Summary
 The program has grown from serving 51 students in its first semester to 162 this
spring—these are students actually enrolled in honors classes.
 The RCCD Honors Program gained membership in HTCC by the end of our first
year (Spring 2006) and UCLA TAP by the end of our third year (Spring 2008).
 RCCD Honors Program student participation in the UC Irvine honors student
conference has grown from 9 students in Spring 2007 to 19 students Spring 2009.
 The Program put on its first annual district-wide honors student conference Fall
2008 and is publishing its first annual anthology of student work (submissions to
both conferences and the program’s essay contest) this Spring 2009.
23
 Norco has been able to come back to the program, offering classes again this Spring
2009.
 Curriculum has been developed, passed and articulated for 20 honors seminars, of
which 14 are in our regular rotation and are being offered at least once in the AY.
The program is steadily working to strengthen math and science offerings.
 We have maintained a 70-85% fill ratio for honors classes offered over the course of
the AY at both Riverside and Moreno Valley. Moreno Valley’s enrollments have
trended upwards and at Riverside they have continued steady at 80-85%.
 We are working to continue to build on strengths and address concerns identified in
the UCLA assessment of our program and we’re preparing for the 2012 midterm
report and 2015 site review.
 We are continuing to track and analyze data and develop surveys; faculty are
participating in the e-portfolio project; and classes in individual disciplines are
being assessed.
J. Recommendations to the Program Review Committee:
How to handle a program like the Honors Program in terms of program review and
assessment is still a work in process! We look forward to your review and
recommendations.
24
APPENDICES
Appendix A: UCLA TAP Acceptance Letter and Recommendations
25
26
27
28
29
Appendix B: RCCD Student Presenters at UC Irvine Building Bridges Conference
Presenter/Coll
Title and Description
ege
Room Sessio
n
Picture Perfect? The Artistry of Leni Riefenstahl SE2
A technical analysis of the Nazi propaganda film
1304
“Triumph of the Will,” examining the artistry of Leni
Riefenstahl and focusing on her editing techniques.
3
Rebekah Silva
Riverside
Nausheen
Sheikh
Riverside
The Waste Land: City of Woe
An analysis of allusions made in T.S. Elliot's poem,
"The Waste Land,” particularly made to Dante
Alighieri’s “Inferno."
SSL
105
2
SSL
The Things They Carried: Forgiving, but Not
105
Forgetting Vietnam
Sophie Noriega An analysis of Tim O’Brien’s depictions of the
Riverside
physical and emotional suffering of soldiers and how
the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial became a place of
remembrance and forgiveness.
3
2
Corey Savage
Riverside
SSL
Analyzing Tim O’Brien’s The Things They
117
Carried in Relation to Protest Music of Vietnam
Analyzing how Tim O’Brien’s book is influenced by
protest music of the Vietnam Era, particularly the
Beatles.
Ammanda
Moore
Riverside
The Naïve Complex
An analysis of the poem “Glory of Women,” which
examines the difference of gender roles in World
War I and separation caused by the war.
SSL
117
3
2
David Estrada
Riverside
Das Waste Land: An Examination of the Parallels SSL
Between “Das Rheingold” and “The Waste Land” 119
The sterile landscape of T.S. Elliot's “The Waste
Land” meets the Norse gods from Richard Wagner's
“Das Rheingold.” Two works, one message: human
emotion is a needed element in any society.
SSL
119
3
Michael
Nguyen
Riverside
T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” and the Cumean
Sibyl: Rebirth and Rejuvenation at the Cost of
Complete Societal Destruction
Like a lantern shattering the midnight darkness, T.S.
Eliot’s “The Waste Land” offers a glimpse of hope
encased within a great sense of societal despair.
Donte
Hightower
Riverside
Lament for the Stars
A heartfelt lament for the atrocities we have
committed on our night’s skies.
SSL
122
1
30
SSL
129
1
2
Natalie Reid
Riverside
SSL
129
John Lennon and his Political Views, Till Death
Do They Part: An Essay on Art in Politics
John Lennon was always very opinionated, especially
on political subjects. Until The Beatles broke up, he
hid his liberal views in obscure lyrics. He was able to
be more direct after his group disbanded.
3
Donte
Hightower
Riverside
Environmental Art: Utilizing Popular Culture to SSL
129
Facilitate Environmental Reform
Identifies and analyzes various forms of
environmental art and their effects on environmental
reform, with an emphasis on relations within popular
culture.
SSL
129
3
SSL
140
1
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Christian Durán Discussion of media representations of the Iraq War,
Riverside
comparing stories from The New York Times and
entries made to a war blog in May, 2004.
SSL
140
3
Maereen
Sheikh
Riverside
Women is Islam
Explores the different interpretations of the role of
women in Islam and how they have been understood
in Western society.
SSL
152
2
SSL
All Men are Created Equal...Except the Gays
Discusses the reasons why gay marriage should be
155
legalized and how denying this basic right is a failure
of the promises of America.
1
James Ryan
Riverside
Less Clean Dressers: Graffiti Jams and the
Political Gate
Tara Mae Singh
Defines the understanding of the art of graffiti as a
Riverside
catalyst for change in a city, the focus on the
individual, and the "thingness" of the art form.
Political Change from the Darkroom:
Photography’s Impact on Wartime Images
Photography has provided the general public with a
Anna Campbell
greater awareness of war that was previously unseen
Riverside
through other visual representations. Discusses how
photography is a more effective means of depicting
war.
Sierra LaPoint
Riverside
"The Origin of the Work of Art": The Truth of
Art - The Art of Truth
Beauty does not make art. Truth makes art.
According to Heidegger, only once we understand
this truth can we fully appreciate a work of art.
31
Repairing the Waste Land with the Upanishads
T. S. Eliot’s use of the Hindu Upanishads in “The
Whole Land” as advice for the troubled world in the
aftermath of World War I.
SSL
206
1
Nicolette Rohr
Riverside
SSL
The American Promise: Douglass and Obama
Compares Frederick Douglass's "What to the Slave is 270
the Fourth Of July" and Barack Obama's "A More
Perfect Union." Each addresses America's progress
on becoming closer to the American Promise.
3
Jordan
Rodriguez
Riverside
Appendix C: Honors Course Offerings and Enrollment Charts
Course Offerings from Fall 2005 through Spring 2008 (I can add Fall 08 and Spring
09)
Non Canceled Classes
Term
Campus Course Section
Spring
2009
Eng
NOR
1BH
33608
Hum
NOR
10H
33524
MOV
MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Eng
1AH
Eng
1BH
Chem
1BH
Hum
10H
Eng
1AH
Eng
1BH
Hist
7H
Hum
5H
Math
12H
Pol Sci
23341
23350
23769
23903
44893
44916
45165
45182
46119
45747
Term
Canceled Classes
Campus Course Section
32
RIV
1H
Spe
Com
1H
46057
Fall 2008
MOV
MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Spring
2008
MOV
MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Eng
1AH
Eng
1BH
Chem
1AH
Phil
10H
Eng
1AH
Eng
1BH
Art 6H
His 6H
Hum
5H
Phil
10H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
GEG-1
HIS7H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS7H
HUM5H
MAT12
POL1H
22331
22340
23011
22517
43264
43282
44125
43431
42559
43948
Spring
2008
RIV
Econ
7H
RIV
ART6H
43210
33
Fall 2007 MOV
MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Spring
2007
MOV
MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Fall 2006 MOV
MOV
MOV
RIV
RIV
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS6H
PHI10H
ECO7H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HUM4H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS7H
POL1H
ART6H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HUM5H
SPA1H
ENG1AH
HIS-6
PHI10H
ART-6
ENG-
27213
Fall 2007
27787
RIV
RIV
SPA2H
SPE9H
18955
19044
27763
27458
18839
17683
17707
19013
48126
Spring
2007
NOR
48128
NOR
48190
RIV
48177
RIV
PHI10H
SPE1H
POL2H
SPE1H
44501
48329
47732
47923
48303
45780
48307
47959
46502
74388
73637
74386
71653
74703
Fall 2006
NOR
RIV
PHI10H
SPA1H
74532
74474
34
RIV
RIV
RIV
Spring
2006
MOV
NOR
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
RIV
Fall 2005 MOV
NOR
NOR
RIV
RIV
1AH
ENG1B
HUM4H
POL1H
72590
74601
74396
POL-1
POL-1
ENG1A
ENG1B
HUM10
HUM5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
43653
43854
PHI-10
ENG1A
POL-1
ENG1A
HUM4
70783
Spring
2006
MOV
ENG1B
43174
41336
43788
41558
43789
43790
43791
70780
70784
68022
70782
Appendix D: Fill Ratios for Honors Courses
Fill Ratio Data as of Census for Riverside City College Honors Classes Fall 2005Spring 2009 on the City Campus
Fall 2005
MIS
Term
20057
20057
Course
Section
Eng 1A
Hum 4
68022
70782
Total Number of Courses Offered: 2
Fill Ratio
at Census
21/20
19/20
% at
Census
105%
95%
42026
35
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 40
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 100%
Spring 2006
MIS
Course
Term
20063
Eng 1A
20063
Eng 1B
20063
Hum 10
20063
Hum 5
20063
Pol Sci 1
20063
Pol Sci 2
20063
Span 1
Section
43174
41336
43788
41558
43789
43790
43791
Fill Ratio
at Census
21/20
12/20
14/20
17/20
9/20
12/20
10/20
% at
Census
105%
60%
70%
85%
45%
60%
50%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 7
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 95
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 67%
Comments: For the first year of the program, only one of eight classes was at fewer than
10 students at census. Four of eight classes were under 75% fill ratio at census. We
recognized that we offered too many classes for the second semester and that we needed
to balance offerings (for example, we haven’t again offered two sections of Poli Sci in the
same semester). Five of 10 classes were at a 75% or above fill ratio. The average honors
fill ratio at census for 2005-2006 was 83.5%.
Fall 2006
MIS
Term
20067
20067
20067
20067
20067
Course
Section
Art 6
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Hum 4H
Pol Sci 1H
71653
74703
72590
74601
74396
Fill Ratio
at Census
14/20
18/20
23/20
19/20
8/20
% at
Census
70%
90%
115%
95%
40%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 5
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 82
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 82%
Spring 2007
MIS
Course
Term
20073
Art 6H
20073
Eng 1AH
20073
Eng 1BH
20073
Hum 5H
20073
Span 1H
Section
48303
45780
48307
47959
46502
Fill Ratio
at Census
9/20
15/20
20/20
16/20
9/20
% at
Census
45%
75%
100%
80%
45%
36
Total Number of Courses Offered: 5
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 69
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 69%
Comments: Three of 10 courses were under 10 students at census. Seven of 10 sections
were at 70% and above fill ratio at census. For the AY 2006-2007, the average honors
fill ratio was 75.5% at census.
Fall 2007
MIS
Term
20077
20077
20077
20077
Course
Section
Econ 7H
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Hum 4H
18839
17683
17707
19013
Fill Ratio
at Census
13/20
18/20
13/20
16/20
% at
Census
65%
90%
65%
80%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 60
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 75%
Spring 2008
MIS
Course
Term
20083
Eng 1AH
20083
Eng 1BH
20083
Hum 5H
20083
Pol Sci
1H
20083
20083
Section
Hist 7H
Math 12H
Fill Ratio
at Census
20/20
21/20
19/20
13/20
% at
Census
100%
105%
95%
65%
9/20
13/20
45%
65%
The cap for this class was
listed wrong in the
report—should have been
20, not 30.
Total Number of Courses Offered: 6
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 95
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 79%
Comments: In 2007-2008 only one of 10 courses at under 10 at census. Five of 10 were
at 80% and above at census while 4 were at 65% at census. For the year, the average
honors fill ratio at census was 77%.
Fall 2008
MIS
Term
20087
Course
Eng 1AH
Section
Fill Ratio
at Census
18/20
% at
Census
90%
37
20087
20087
20087
20087
20087
Eng 1BH
Art 6H
Phil 10H
Hum 4H
Hist 6H
18/20
20/20
18/20
18/20
19/20
90%
100%
90%
90%
95%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 6
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 111
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 92.5%
Spring 2009
MIS
Term
20093
20093
20093
20093
20093
20093
20093
Course
Section
44893
44916
45182
45747
46057
Fill Ratio
at Census
17/20
19/20
21/20
16/20
17/20
% at
Census
85%
95%
105%
80%
85%
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Hum 5H
PoliSci 1H
SpeechCom
1H
Hist 7H
Math 12H
45165
46119
10/20
8/20
50%
40%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 7
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 108
Average Fill Ration for Honors Sections: 77.14%
Comments: For 2008-2009, only 2 seminars were under 10 at census. 11 of 13 courses
were at 80% or above at census. Average fill ratio for AY 08-09 was 84.82% up 7.82 %
from 07-08 even with three more courses being offered.
While individual courses and semesters demonstrate variation in fill ratios, the program
at City campus as a whole during its first four years has averaged a fill ratio at census of
75% and higher. The overall average at census for the first four years is 80.02% .
Fill Ratios by Course at Riverside
Course
Number of
times offered
English 1AH
8
English 1BH
7
Humanities 4H 4
Humanities 5H 4
Hum 10H
1
Poli Sci 1H
4
Average Fill
Ratio
92.5%
90%
90%
91.25%
70%
57.5%, but
much stronger
over the last
38
Poli Sci 2H
Spanish 1H
Art 6H
Econ 7H
History 6H
History 7H
Math 12H
Philosophy 1H
Speech Com
1H
two offerings
on the new
rotation—
72.5%
60%
47.5%
71.66%
65%
95%
47.5%
52.5%
90%
85%
1
2
3
1
1
2
2
1
1
Moreno Valley
Fall 2005
MIS
Course
Term
20057
Phil 10H
Section
Fill Ratio
at Census
8/20
% at
Census
40%
Spring 2006
MIS
Course
Section
Term
20063
Pol Sci 1H 43653
Fill Ratio
at Census
8/20
% at
Census
40%
Fall 2006
MIS
Term
20067
20067
20067
Fill Ratio
at Census
17/20
17/20
7/20
% at
Census
85%
85%
35%
70783
Course
Section
Eng 1AH
Hist 6H
Phil 10H
74388
73637
74386
Total Number of Courses Offered: 3
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 41
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 68.33%
Spring 2007
MIS
Course
Term
20073
Eng 1AH
20073
Eng 1BH
20073
Pol Sci 1H
20073
Hist 7H
Section
48126
48128
48177
48190
Fill Ratio
at Census
12/20
12/20
6/20
8/20
% at
Census
60%
60%
30%
40%
39
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 38
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 47.5%
Fall 2007
MIS
Term
20077
20077
20077
20077
Course
Section
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Hist 6H
Phil 10H
27213
27787
27763
27458
Fill Ratio
at Census
20/20
17/20
8/20
13/20
% at
Census
100%
85%
40%
65%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 58
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 72.5%
Spring 2008
MIS
Course
Term
20083
Eng 1AH
20083
Eng 1BH
20083
Geg 1H
20083
His 7H
Section
22331
22340
23011
22517
Fill Ratio
at Census
18/20
13/20
9/20
17/20
% at
Census
90%
65%
45%
85%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 57
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 71.25%
Fall 2008
MIS
Term
20087
20087
20087
20087
Course
Section
27612
Fill Ratio
at Census
12/20
% at
Census
60%
Chem
1AH
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Phil 10H
27211
27218
27453
19/20
17/20
16/20
95%
85%
80%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 64
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 80%
Spring 2009
MIS
Course
Term
20093
Chem
1BH
Section
23769
Fill Ratio
at Census
14/20
% at
Census
70%
40
20093
20093
20093
Eng 1AH
Eng 1BH
Hum 10H
23341
23350
23903
20/20
7/20
12/20
100%
35%
60%
Total Number of Courses Offered: 4
Total Number of Enrolled Spaces: 53
Average Fill Ratio for Honors Sections: 66.25%
Fill Ratios by Course at Moreno Valley
Course
Number of
Average Fill
times offered
Ratio
English 1AH
5
English 1BH
4
Hum 10H
1
Poli Sci 1H
2
Chemistry 1AH 1
Chemistry 1BH 1
Geography 1H 1
History 6H
2
History 7H
2
Philosophy 1H 4
Norco
Fall 2005
MIS
Term
20057
20057
Course
Section
Eng 1AH 70780
Pol Sci 1H 70784
Fill Ratio
at Census
10/10
3/20
% at
Census
50%
12.24/5??
Fill Ratio
at Census
4/20
% at
Census
20%
% at
Census
50%
50%
Spring 2006
MIS
Term
20063
Course
Section
Pol Sci 1H 43854
Spring 2009
MIS
Term
20093
20093
Course
Section
Eng 1BH
Hum 10H
33608
33524
Fill Ratio
at Census
10/20
10/20
Fill Ratios by Course at Norco
Course
Number of
Average Fill
41
English 1AH
English 1BH
Hum 10H
Poli Sci 1H
times offered
1
1
1
2
Ratio
Appendix E: Honors Retention/ Completion and Successful Completion Charts
Honors Courses, Spring 2008
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ENG-1A
ENG-1B
GEG-1
HIS-7
HUM-5
MAT-12
POL-1
Honors Courses, Fall 2007
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ECO-7
ENG-1A
ENG-1B
HIS-6
HUM-4
PHI-10
42
Honors Courses, Spring 2007
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ART-6H
ENG-1AH
ENG-1BH
HIS-7H
HUM-5H
POL-1H
SPA-1H
Honors Courses, Fall 2006
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ART-6
ENG-1AH
ENG-1B
HIS-6
HUM-4H
PHI-10H
POL-1H
43
Honors Courses, Spring 2006
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ENG-1A
ENG-1B
HUM-10
HUM-5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
Honors Courses, Fall 2005
100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
Retention
50.0%
Success
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
ENG-1A
Term
Spring
2008
HUM-4
PHI-10
Course %Completed %Successful
ENG1A
88.6%
82.7%
ENG1B
88.9%
86.1%
GEG-1
55.6%
55.6%
HIS-7
89.3%
71.4%
HUM5
100.0%
92.9%
MAT12
57.1%
50.0%
POL-1
100.0%
77.8%
POL-1
44
Fall 2007 ECO-7
ENG1A
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4
PHI-10
Spring
2007
ART6H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS7H
HUM5H
POL1H
SPA1H
Fall 2006 ART-6
ENG1AH
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4H
PHI10H
POL1H
Spring
2006
ENG1A
ENG1B
HUM10
HUM-
100.0%
69.2%
95.0%
87.5%
96.8%
100.0%
87.1%
100.0%
100.0%
100.0%
87.5%
69.2%
88.9%
77.8%
85.2%
63.0%
87.5%
78.1%
100.0%
100.0%
81.3%
75.0%
83.3%
83.3%
87.5%
87.5%
100.0%
76.9%
90.6%
81.3%
89.5%
100.0%
84.2%
88.2%
76.2%
66.7%
85.7%
71.4%
100.0%
87.5%
85.7%
61.9%
83.3%
66.7%
100.0%
87.5%
90.0%
87.5%
45
5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
ENGFall 2005 1A
HUM4
PHI-10
POL-1
95.0%
60.0%
70.0%
90.0%
60.0%
70.0%
72.7%
63.6%
84.2%
100.0%
83.3%
68.4%
100.0%
83.3%
Retention/Completion Comparison Honors and Non-Honors Sections
Term
Spring
2008
Course Honors
ENG1A
88.6%
ENG1B
88.9%
GEG-1 55.6%
HIS-7
89.3%
HUM5
100.0%
MAT12
57.1%
POL-1 100.0%
Fall 2007 ECO-7
ENG1A
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4
PHI-10
Spring
2007
ART6H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS-
NonHonors
80.7% No
82.8% No
84.0% Yes
83.7% No
84.2% No
77.2% No
80.3% No
100.0%
85.7% No
95.0%
85.0% No
96.8%
100.0%
85.0% No
85.8% No
100.0%
100.0%
77.5% Yes
86.4% No
88.9%
82.5% No
85.2%
79.2% No
87.5%
100.0%
82.6% No
79.0% No
Significant
Difference?
46
7H
HUM5H
POL1H
SPA1H
Fall 2006 ART-6
ENG1AH
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4H
PHI10H
POL1H
Spring
2006
ENG1A
ENG1B
HUM10
HUM5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
ENGFall 2005 1A
HUM4
PHI-10
POL-1
81.3%
84.4% No
83.3%
77.8% No
87.5%
77.4% No
100.0%
89.4% No
90.6%
83.5% No
89.5%
100.0%
85.9% No
85.5% No
76.2%
67.7% No
85.7%
82.7% No
100.0%
84.5% No
85.7%
80.1% No
83.3%
83.1% No
87.5%
63.5% No
100.0%
95.0%
60.0%
70.0%
83.5%
83.7%
97.2%
77.7%
No
No
Yes
No
72.7%
80.0% No
84.2%
100.0%
83.3%
69.1% No
86.2% No
84.0% No
47
Successful Completion Comparison
Term
Spring
2008
Course Honors
ENG1A
82.7%
ENG1B
86.1%
GEG-1
55.6%
HIS-7
71.4%
HUM5
92.9%
MAT12
50.0%
POL-1
77.8%
Fall 2007 ECO-7
ENG1A
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4
PHI-10
Spring
2007
ART6H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS7H
HUM5H
POL1H
SPA1H
Fall 2006 ART-6
ENG1AH
ENG-
NonHonors
67.5% No
71.4% No
67.2% No
64.3% No
65.8% No
66.7% No
57.8% No
69.2%
58.2% No
87.5%
67.4% Yes
87.1%
100.0%
72.4% No
62.0% Yes
87.5%
69.2%
48.8% Yes
59.0% No
77.8%
66.5% No
63.0%
64.7% No
78.1%
71.1% No
100.0%
53.6% Yes
75.0%
60.9% No
83.3%
57.2% No
87.5%
63.1% No
76.9%
69.8% No
81.3%
84.2%
67.3% No
74.6% No
Significant
Difference?
48
1B
HIS-6
HUM4H
PHI10H
POL1H
Spring
2006
ENG1A
ENG1B
HUM10
HUM5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
ENGFall 2005 1A
HUM4
PHI10
POL-1
88.2%
63.3% Yes
66.7%
48.5% No
71.4%
57.1% No
87.5%
60.9% No
61.9%
66.0% No
66.7%
72.5% No
87.5%
34.6% Yes
90.0%
90.0%
60.0%
70.0%
67.4%
67.6%
75.0%
58.4%
63.6%
65.0% No
68.4%
57.3% No
100.0%
83.3%
No
Yes
No
No
59.7% Yes
61.7% No
GPA Comparison
Term
Spring
2008
Course
ENG1A
ENG1B
GEG-1
HIS-7
HUM5
MAT12
POL-1
Honors
GPA
Non-Honors
GPA
2.56
1.99 Yes
2.64
1.67
2.54
2.09 Yes
1.99 No
2.05 No
2.71
2.05 No
1.57
2.18
2.09 No
1.68 No
Significant
Difference?
49
Fall 2007 ECO-7
ENG1A
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4
PHI-10
Spring
2007
ART6H
ENG1AH
ENG1BH
HIS7H
HUM5H
POL1H
SPA1H
Fall 2006 ART-6
ENG1AH
ENG1B
HIS-6
HUM4H
PHI10H
POL1H
Spring
2006
ENG1A
ENG1B
HUM10
2.46
1.58 Yes
2.59
1.99 Yes
2.75
3.50
2.01 Yes
2.00 Yes
2.65
2.46
1.42 Yes
1.80 No
3.11
2.14 No
2.11
1.86 No
2.47
2.05 No
3.63
1.62 Yes
2.44
1.90 No
2.83
1.61 Yes
2.67
1.91 No
2.86
2.25 No
2.26
1.85 No
2.04
2.47
2.10 No
1.86 No
2.00
1.04 Yes
2.14
1.70 No
3.13
1.69 Yes
1.81
1.88 No
2.08
2.05 No
2.41
0.98 Yes
50
HUM5
POL-1
POL-2
SPA-1
ENGFall 2005 1A
HUM4
PHI10
POL-1
2.00
3.05
1.67
2.80
2.00
1.94
2.47
1.81
No
Yes
No
No
2.03
1.81 No
2.00
1.57 No
3.13
3.17
1.85 Yes
1.83 Yes
Appendix F: Honors Demographic Charts
Breakdown of Honors Students in Comparison to District Student Profile
1. Breakdown by Age
Honors vs. District: Age (Fall05 - Spring08: Six Semesters)
45.0
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
Honors age %
District age %
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Less than 18
18 or 19
20 to 24
25 to 29
30 to 34
35 to 39
40 to 49
50 or more
51
2. Breakdown by Gender
Honors vs. District: Sex (Fall05 - Spring 08: Six Semesters)
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
Honors %
District %
30.0
20.0
10.0
0.0
Female
3. Breakdown by Ethnicity
Male
Unknown
52
Honors vs. District: Ethnicity (Fall05 - Spring 08: Six Semesters)
50.0
45.0
40.0
35.0
30.0
Honors %
District %
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
Asian/Pac Isle
African American
Hispanic
Caucasian
Other
53
54
Appendix G: Number of Honors Course taken as of Spring 2008
Number of Honors
Courses*
Number of
Students
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
37
21
10
10
1
1
2
*Most recent term
Appendix H: Honors Course Outcomes
A. Common Learning Outcomes for Honors Courses—please note, of course, that these
do not replace the specific outcomes for individual courses but augment them.
1. Students will demonstrate enhanced oral communication skills, increased sensitivity,
dialogical openness, receptivity, willingness to interrogate, the ability to recognize
multiple valid viewpoints and engage in authentic debate
2. Students will respond competently to more complex and sophisticated writing
assignments. They will demonstrate an ability to re-conceive their familiar worlds in new
ways, grapple with concepts that have no simple answers, think about and grapple with
complexity in their written work
3. Students will demonstrate an ability to analyze and respond to challenging and diverse
course readings, respond to these readings in writing, and put these texts in dialogue with
one another—and with communities of interpretation (historical, personal, social, spatial)
4. Students will demonstrate a high degree of self-motivation and intellectual
independence
These are outcomes we are asking be included in Honors Course Outlines currently being
developed and they are being incorporated in existing Honors Course Outlines as these
undergo the regular process of curriculum review. This identification is the first step.
What we now need to do is to develop a mechanism for assessing these in the honors
seminars. We already have a student survey distributed at the end of the term in each
honors seminar which provides some “soft” data about students’ perceptions of what
they’ve learned and how they’ve benefited from the program. One of the projects we’d
like to initiate for honors faculty this year or next, is a norming session at which we will
look at sample papers from our honors classes to facilitate a continued conversation about
the outcomes we hope to see our Honors students demonstrate.
55
GenED SLOs
General Education Student Learning Outcomes
for Academic and Vocational Degree Programs
Riverside Community College District
Critical Thinking
• Analyze and solve complex problems across a range of academic and everyday
contexts
• Construct sound arguments and evaluate arguments of others
• Consider and evaluate rival hypotheses
• Recognize and assess evidence from a variety of sources
• Generalize appropriately from specific cases
• Integrate knowledge across a range of contexts
• Identify one’s own and others’ assumptions, biases, and their consequences
Information Skills
• Demonstrate computer literacy
• Locate, evaluate, and use information effectively
Communication Skills
• Write with precision and clarity to express complex thought
• Read college-level materials with understanding and insight
• Listen thoughtfully and respectfully to the ideas of others
• Speak with precision and clarity to express complex thought
Breadth of Knowledge
• Understand the basic content and modes of inquiry of the major knowledge
fields
• Analyze experimental results and draw reasonable conclusions from them
• Use the symbols and vocabulary of mathematics to solve problems and
communicate results
• Respond to and evaluate artistic expression
Application of Knowledge
• Maintain and transfer academic and technical skills to workplace
• Be life-long learners, with ability to acquire and employ new knowledge
• Set goals and devise strategies for personal and professional development and well
being
56
Global Awareness
• Demonstrate appreciation for civic responsibility and ethical behavior
• Participate in constructive social interaction
• Demonstrate teamwork skills
• Demonstrate understanding of ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic diversity
• Demonstrate understanding of alternative political, historical, and cultural
viewpoints
57
Appendix I HTCC Application/ Membership Criteria
The Honors Transfer Council of California
Application for Membership
Name of College: ___________________________________________ Date:
____________________
College Address:
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Date your Honors Program began offering classes/contracts:
___________________________________
Contact Person: ______________________________ Title (director/coordinator):
_________________
Mailing Address (if different from college address):
__________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
__________
E-mail Address: ____________________________ FAX:
____________________________________
Office Tel: ________________________________ Home Tel:
________________________________
Please provide the following information for statistical purposes:
1. Director:
units of released time for honors (AY): _____
overload pay for honors (unit equivalent per AY): _____
summertime pay/released time for honors work: _____
2. Support Staff:
classified/hourly clerical for honors (hours per week): _____
work-study for honors: _____
3. Do you have an Honors Office separate from your faculty office? Yes No
4. Do you have an honors student organization recognized by your student government?
Yes No
5. Approximate number of students now enrolled in your program: _______
6. Approximate number of students who will be ready for transfer
at the end of this academic year: ______
7. Is your program based on: A. ___ honors courses/sections only, B. ___ honors
contracts only
or C. ___ a combination of the two?
8. If A or C, are your courses/sections i. ___ freestanding, ii. ___ add-ons to regular
sections,
or iii. ___ a combination?
9. Approximate number of honors courses/sections offered per semester i. ___
freestanding
ii. ___ add-ons
The Constitution of the Honors Transfer Council of California states: “Membership in the
Honors Transfer
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Council is open only to community colleges with an active honors/scholars program that
meets the following
criteria:” Please initial the criteria met by your program.
_____ (1) The program offers honors/scholars courses and/or contracts designed to offer
an enriched academic
experience as defined by the instructional faculty of the college;
_____ (2) The program is designed to assist students in developing their critical thinking
skills and writing ability;
_____ (3) The program is a campus-wide endeavor in that it offers courses from various
disciplines and is assisted
by a broad-based advisory committee;
_____ (4) The program establishes and adheres to completion requirements that include a
minimum GPA and a
minimum number of letter-graded honors/scholars courses and units;
_____ (5) The program sets its GPA minimum at 3.0 or above, and sets its completion
requirement at five courses
or above, equivalent to at least 15 semester units;
_____ (6) The program is headed by members of the instructional faculty;
_____ (7) The head of the program is supported by reassigned time and/or stipends
commensurate with the size of
the program and the number of students served;
_____ (8) The program is supported by clerical assistance commensurate with the size of
the program and the
number of students served;
_____ (9) The program makes counseling available to honors/scholars students to support
them in their
educational endeavors and plans, including transfer;
_____ (10) The program pays annual dues [$50] to the Council, unless those dues be
forgiven for reasons given
under Article 1, Section 3 of the Bylaws.
If your program does not meet any of the above criteria, please attach a brief
explanation of the circumstances
and of any plans or progress toward meeting them.
Please forward this completed form together with:
1. Any literature produced by your program (posters, brochures, student handbooks,
course listings, etc.)
2. A letter, signed by your college President/Superintendent or Vice-President for
Academic Affairs,
requesting membership in the HTCC and attesting that the required criteria are met or
that your college has
plans to meet them.
59
Appendix J:
NCHC statements
Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program
No one model of an Honors program can be superimposed on all types of institutions.
However, there are characteristics that are common to successful, fully developed Honors
programs. Listed below are those characteristics, although not all characteristics are
necessary for an Honors program to be considered a successful and/or fully developed
Honors program.









A fully developed Honors program should be carefully set up to accommodate the
special needs and abilities of the undergraduate students it is designed to serve. This
entails identifying the targeted student population by some clearly articulated set of
criteria (e.g., GPA, SAT score, a written essay). A program with open admission
needs to spell out expectations for retention in the program and for satisfactory
completion of program requirements.
The program should have a clear mandate from the institutional administration
ideally in the form of a mission statement clearly stating the objectives and
responsibilities of the program and defining its place in both the administrative and
academic structure of the institution. This mandate or mission statement should be
such as to assure the permanence and stability of the program by guaranteeing an
adequate budget and by avoiding any tendency to force the program to depend on
temporary or spasmodic dedication of particular faculty members or administrators. In
other words, the program should be fully institutionalized so as to build thereby a
genuine tradition of excellence.
The Honors director should report to the chief academic officer of the institution.
There should be an Honors curriculum featuring special courses, seminars, colloquia,
and independent study established in harmony with the mission statement and in
response to the needs of the program.
The program requirements themselves should include a substantial portion of the
participants’ undergraduate work, usually in the vicinity of 20% to 25% of their total
course work and certainly no less than 15%.
The program should be so formulated that it relates effectively both to all the college
work for the degree (e.g., by satisfying general education requirements) and to the area
of concentration, departmental specialization, pre-professional or professional
training.
The program should be both visible and highly reputed throughout the institution so
that it is perceived as providing standards and models of excellence for students and
faculty across the campus.
Faculty participating in the program should be fully identified with the aims of the
program. They should be carefully selected on the basis of exceptional teaching skills
and the ability to provide intellectual leadership to able students.
The program should occupy suitable quarters constituting an Honors center with
such facilities as an Honors library, lounge, reading rooms, personal computers and
other appropriate decor.
60








The director or other administrative officer charged with administering the program
should work in close collaboration with a committee or council of faculty members
representing the colleges and/or departments served by the program.
The program should have in place a committee of Honors students to serve as liaison
with the Honors faculty committee or council who must keep them fully informed on
the program and elicit their cooperation in evaluation and development. This student
group should enjoy as much autonomy as possible conducting the business of the
committee in representing the needs and concerns of all Honors students to the
administration, and it should also be included in governance, serving on the
advisory/policy committee as well as constituting the group that governs the student
association.
There should be provisions for special academic counseling of Honors students by
uniquely qualified faculty and/or staff personnel.
The Honors program, in distinguishing itself from the rest of the institution, serves as
a kind of laboratory within which faculty can try things they have always wanted to
try but for which they could find no suitable outlet. When such efforts are
demonstrated to be successful, they may well become institutionalized thereby raising
the general level of education within the college or university for all students. In this
connection, the Honors curriculum should serve as a prototype for things that can
work campus-wide in the future.
The fully developed Honors program must be open to continuous and critical review
and be prepared to change in order to maintain its distinctive position of offering
distinguished education to the best students in the institution.
A fully developed program will emphasize the participatory nature of the Honors
educational process by adopting such measures as offering opportunities for students
to participate in regional and national conferences, Honors semesters, international
programs, community service, and other types of experiential education.
Fully developed two-year and four-year Honors programs will have articulation
agreements by which Honors graduates from two-year colleges are accepted into fouryear Honors programs when they meet previously agreed-upon requirements.
A fully developed program will provide priority enrollment for honors students who
are active in the program in recognition of their unique class scheduling needs.
{March, 2004; November, 2007}
(Approved by the NCHC Executive Committee on March 4, 1994, and amended by the
NCHC Board of Directors on November 23, 2007)
Designing an Honors Course
Every Honors instructor is different and every Honors course is different. Still, there do
seem to be some characteristics that are common to many, if not most, Honors courses.
Below are some guidelines that you may find helpful. In the words of one Honors faculty
member, the finest instructors are those who are "willing to share the responsibility for
teaching and learning with their students. The key to a successful Honors program is not
the intelligence of the student or the subject matter of the course, but the attitude and
approach of the instructor."
61
Objectives
Most Honors courses will have the following five objectives, or some variation:
1. To help students develop effective written communication skills (including the ability
to make effective use of the information and ideas they learn);
2. To help students develop effective oral communication skills (while recognizing that
not all students are comfortable talking a lot in class);
3. To help students develop their ability to analyze and synthesize a broad range of
material;
4. To help students understand how scholars think about problems, formulate
hypotheses, research those problems, and draw conclusions about them; and to help
students understand how creative artists approach the creative process and produce an
original work;
5. To help students become more independent and critical thinkers, demonstrating the
ability to use knowledge and logic when discussing an issue or an idea, while
considering the consequences of their ideas, for themselves, for others, and for society.
Let us consider each of these briefly.
Developing written communication skills
Discussion and writing are the hallmarks of Honors classes. Students become better
writers (Objective 1) by using writing, both in class and out, as a means to express their
ideas. Therefore, Honors courses should emphasize papers and essays, not multiplechoice exams, and emphasize ideas and active learning over information and lectures.
How Honors faculty choose to help students develop written communication skills will
depend on the discipline and on the instructor’s individual views about teaching and
learning. Instructors can help students develop written skills through traditional writing
assignments or through other methods such as journals, creative writing, reports,
critiques, reviews, in-class writing, or the use of writing as a preliminary to discussion of
issues. (In fact, the latter works extremely well to stimulate discussion. Students who
have written something ahead of time are more willing to share their ideas and are less
likely to talk off the top their heads in class.)
Developing oral communication skills
Students become better speakers (Objective 2) by participating in class discussion and,
where appropriate, by leading class discussion. Therefore, Honors program courses
should be discussion-oriented rather than lectures. Students benefit most from discussion
when they are given the topic several days in advance and are asked to prepare their
responses in writing ahead of time. The instructor might wish to provide some
background to inform the discussion, which can then be used as a springboard to other
ideas.
62
Developing the ability to analyze, to synthesize, and to understand scholarly work
Students develop the ability to think about a broad range of ideas (Objective 3) and come
to understand how scholars and artists work (Objective 4) by reading and responding to
primary source material, by exploring issues and problems in depth rather than quickly
and superficially, and by being carefully exposed to and guided through the methods of
many disciplines. Therefore, Honors courses should try to explore with students the
questions and methods common to all intellectual endeavors and those that differentiate
the disciplines, to give students real-world, hands-on problems to explore, and to help
them understand the place of intellectual pursuit in the greater society.
The use of primary sources allows students to develop their own interpretations instead of
relying on someone else’s. Cross-disciplinary readings are especially valuable, in that
they give students the opportunity to synthesize ideas. But primary sources are not
necessarily limited to published texts or original documents. They can, for example, be
the students’ own experiences, the results of surveys or questionnaires, works of art or
music, films, videos, and the like. What is important is that students have an opportunity
to be engaged by primary material.
Exploring issues and problems in depth may mean that the course covers less material
than conventional courses In many courses, the amount of material covered is less
important than the way the material is handled. Students need to learn to see the broad
implications of each issue, as well as learning to analyze and synthesize the material. In
this way, students will be able to apply what they have learned to other situations.
Helping students become independent and critical thinkers
Students become independent thinkers and critical thinkers (Objective 5) by working
independently, yet under the guidance of responsive teachers. Therefore, an Honors
course should give students a great deal of opportunity to think, write, and produce on
their own (and in collaboration with their classmates) - as with papers and projects - and
should give their work on-going feedback and encouragement. Honors courses should
help students learn how to utilize their ideas in a broader social context - by helping them
understand the origins, consequences, and principles underlying their ideas.
Honors courses should also create a classroom environment that is open to many
perspectives and points of view, where students are encouraged to take intellectual risks
and feel safe doing so, where they learn to respect each other (although not necessarily
each others’ ideas), and where they are taught to consider both the immediate and long
term consequences of their own ideas.
When students become active learners through direct involvement with an issue, they
develop attitudes and habits which may make them more active in the intellectual and
cultural life of the community. It also makes them more aware of the political and social
realities of that community.
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But for students to become truly active participants in their learning, they must become
intellectual risk-takers. Therefore, Honors instructors themselves should be willing to
take risks -to teach in a different manner, to be open to challenges from students, to be
willing to let the classroom discussion roam freely yet fruitfully.
While Honors courses need to help students develop intellectually, instructors also need
to hold them responsible for meeting the course requirements. Honors students may be
brighter than the average student - more intellectually skeptical and (usually) highly
motivated - but they are not necessarily better organized, better informed, or better
prepared for their classes. Just like other students, they need to learn good work habits.
Still, it would be unfair to hold them to a higher standard in this regard; most are, after
all, 18 to 21 years old. Also, when designing an Honors course, it is important to
remember that Honors courses are not meant to have more work for the sake of more
work or harder work for the sake of harder work. The amount of work and its difficulty
should serve a legitimate pedagogical purpose.
Recruitment
Honors programs and colleges exist in a world in which the flood of information, the
multitude of choices, and the claims of advertising may easily overwhelm any of us.
Today, students approaching high school graduation, especially those with high test
scores and superior academic records, are inundated by recruitment letters, college view
books, scholarship promises, and invitations for campus visitations. Because Honors adds
an additional level of selection to the college and university admissions process,
recruitment has become an important activity for most Honors programs and colleges.
Honors education differentiates itself from conventional undergraduate education, and
prospective students and their parents want -and need-to have these differences clarified.
For both our prospective students and their parents, the question "Why should I choose
Honors?" is just as important as "Why should I choose your college or university?"
Although most high school students have a general idea about college programs, their
understanding of college honors courses can often be uninformed or mistaken. Moreover,
since one of the goals of Honors programs is to attract highly qualified students to their
campus, an effective recruitment program is a way of achieving their mission.
Successful recruitment programs present and promote Honors on their campus in the
following ways:

College view book materials that use text and photos highlighting Honors
activities and students. Some Honors programs and colleges publish their own Honors
view book.

Website information. Both the college’s website and the Honors homepage are
increasingly important in the selection process. You may find it helpful to list your
NCHC membership on your website and provide a link to www.nchchonors.org.

Letters, accompanied by brochures and other informative materials, encouraging
qualified students to apply for Honors.
64

A campus visitation program for prospective Honors Students, either held
separately, or as a part of your campus’s scheduled visitation program. If you want to
find a good model for campus visitations, ask your college’s athletics director what
they do.

Specific examples of your students’ successes. These bring the nature and
quality of your program down to earth. Don’t forget that your admissions office, the
campus website, even your President and other administrative officers, are often eager
to use stories and photos of student successes provided by Honors,

Student Involvement in recruitment activities. Your current Honors students, in
all their diversity, are the best advertisements you can find for your program. They
speak a common language with prospective students, have similar concerns, and
above all function as models for what students in your program or college can
become.

Specific recruitment activities and materials that demonstrate the nature of your
program as well as describe it. For example, if the program or college emphasizes
individual attention and development, close student involvement with faculty, and a
relaxed collegial atmosphere, you can incorporate personalized communications,
strong faculty participation, and informal activities for prospective students into your
recruitment activities.
Honors Teaching
In general an Honors program or college is designed to ensure that the most academically
motivated students are challenged to achieve at their highest potential as individuals
while preparing for their responsibilities to the community. Although each Honors
program and course is unique, all Honors courses are expected to develop Honors
students’ ability to think critically, and many if not most also emphasize critical reading
and effective writing.
Honors curricula encourage students to pursue active learning experiences, such as
independent study, undergraduate research, and study abroad, or to seek learner-centered
courses that fall outside of the typical curriculum, such as field study, seminars, minicourses, or internships.
What is the student profile for Honors? Honors students tend to be highly motivated and
high achievers. They respond with intensity to ideas, classroom discussions, and
problem-solving. They can be highly creative and innovative. They are frequently willing
to take on difficult and in-depth projects. They are often involved in the campus
community to a greater extent than other students.
Honors courses tend to be both reading- and writing-intensive. Therefore, it is appropriate
to include numerous writing assignments of varying lengths and types: formal analytical
essays perhaps 5 to 8 pages in length; literature analysis and synthesis and research
papers from 10 to 20 pages in length; book reports; reports appropriate to specific
scientific disciplines; reaction papers; in-class writing; informal writing (1-to-3 page
assignments that have students explore a particular topic, answer a specific question, or
65
accomplish particular objectives set by the instructors); and revisions of any or all of the
above. Other components could include small group work and write-ups, oral
presentations, or community service components that tie in to class concerns.
Honors instructors should assess student writing with the goals of honing each student’s
skills in such things as composition mechanics (grammar, spelling, punctuation); analysis
and logic; style (sentence structure and diction); thesis construction; writing effective
introductions; paragraph development; and the use of supporting evidence; as well as the
skills to write for particular "genres" of writing, such as literary analysis, historical
analysis, scientific studies and reports, film reviews, analysis of art, and so on.
You will find many Honors students very capable in the classroom: they are eager to talk,
to contribute their ideas, and to critique the ideas of others. Therefore, the quality and
nature of your discussions become central to the success of your course. Many instructors
opt to use one or a mixture of the following kinds of discussions to enhance the flow of
ideas in the classroom: call and response (the Socratic method) led by the instructor, freeflowing discussions led by the students, small-group discussions within the class room
that are focused on particular issues, structured debates and student-led discussions
prepared ahead of time through student-generated lists of questions or topics relevant to
the reading materials.
Because many Honors students can be very verbal, it may be useful to establish
guidelines for communication, sharing the floor, respect for the speaker, and so on.
Outside the classroom, you may want to encourage your students to participate in the
larger academic community: university lectures, films, and so on. Consider building some
extracurricular events into the syllabus of your courses; or have students attend lectures
or events on an extra-credit basis.
Students often enjoy meeting and socializing with their instructors outside the class
setting. You might think of hosting a pizza evening at your home or arranging an
informal get-together to discuss the class’s issues in another venue besides the classroom.
Many instructors assign office conferences as part of their syllabus requirements.
Students find it particularly helpful to attend conferences on their writing assignments,
drafts, or research.
It is very important to set high expectations for your Honors students and to do so in a
timely fashion, e.g., at the beginning of the term. Difficulties that arise in any given
semester, and in any given Honors class, often have to do with particular expectations not
being clarified at the outset. In Honors classes, it might be helpful to immediately convey
to students that the course will be enriching and challenging; that it will spend
considerable time honing the students’ abilities in critical thinking, analytical writing,
close reading, cogent speaking, and attentive listening; and that students are, to a large
extent, responsible for the quality of the learning experience that they will have. They
will be expected to participate thoughtfully and fully in all aspects of the class.
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67
Appendix K: Counseling Services
HONORS
Counseling Services
Semester Timeline
FALL/SPRING
September/February
 Inform students to activate
RCC email as that will be
a major form of
communication
 After Census: Run report
for all students enrolled in
Honors Classes: UC
GPA, CSU GPA, SEP on
File,
 Email Honors students
Transfer Center Calendar
– email from Jaime to
coordinators to email to
students
October/March
 Coordinators attend
campus department
meeting to provide
updates of Honor’s
Program
 Send Letter to Honors
students encouraging
them to make
counseling appointment
 Make appointment with
counselor to update ed
plan
 Email Honors students
Transfer Center
Calendar – email from
Jaime to coordinators
to email to students
 Attend Application
Workshops – in email
emphasize application
filing dates
November/April
 Make appointment
with counselor to
update ed plan
 Email Honors
students Transfer
Center Calendar –
email from Jaime to
coordinators to email
to students

December/May
 Email Honors
students Transfer
Center Calendar –
email from Jaime to
coordinators to email
to students
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UCLA TAP
October/November
Students pick up TAP Form and make counseling appointment
December
Students turn in TAP forms to site coordinator
January/February
Campus coordinator with counselor fill out TAP forms (GPA etc.)
UNDECIDED STUDENTS
 Attend Career Center workshops
 Make appointment with Career Counselor – Eileen Colapinto
 Recommend Guidance 47: Career Explorations
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Appendix L: May 1, 2009 Honors Advisory Council Minutes
Riverside Community College Honors Program
Honors Advisory Council Meeting Agenda
Friday, May 1st
12:30-2:30
Riverside, Quad 203
I.
Approval of the Agenda and Minutes from February
Two changes will be made to the February minutes and resent to the Council.
II.
Survey
A. Send questions to Kathleen that you think will be useful for a student
survey, an exit survey for students completing the program and for alumni.
B. We should hypothesize some answers that they can rank and then leave
room for extra questions. Diane is going to start an email thread to
start this process.
Reports
A. Coordinators’ Reports
1. Riverside—UCLA, Transfer Advisory Council, Board meeting
a. Board Meeting went very well with Nicolette and Christian giving
student updates.
b. UCR is wide open for admissions, but the other UC schools are
having very impacted admissions. Major prep MUST be completed,
and for the top 12 majors, you have to meet the GPA threshold. TAP
acceptance rates are still really high.
c. Norton Simon is tomorrow.
2. Mo Valley
a. STEM money is being used to develop Honors classes in Life Sciences. The
Honors will have lab space available at Moreno Valley for Honors science
classes, and there is grant money to help equip the labs.
b. President Perez was asked about the Honors lounge, and he has promised
publicly to give that space to the Honors Program.
c. Still thinking about an Honors Club
d. Running 5 classes for the Fall: Adding History 6
e. Please announce the FALL classes for Honors, especially Chem 1A
f. Valerie is taking her English class to Hollywood for a field trip.
3. Norco
No Report for Norco.
4. Student Report
Newsletter is coming out soon!
III.
IV.
Announcements and Information
 Newsletter, contest updates, annual publication, YouTube, spring party
1.
$160 Dollars for the Essay contest has been raised
2.
Need to disseminate information about campus events MORE!
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V.
New Business
 Track A and B will remain our policy in order to completion of our
program.
We discussed Track A and Track B. Track A is completing the program by
taking 6 Honors classes. Track B is completing the program by taking 4 Honors
classes and 2 classes from our list of Math and Science classes that are
eligible.
Chris 1st Mark 2nd All in Favor.
 GPA entry/ exit
Our current GPA is 3.2 to get into the program, but we need to have the exit
GPA be more competitive. Our proposal is to make the Entry GPA 3.0 and the
Exit GPA 3.2. This refers to the transfer GPA, not the overall RCC GPA. We
vote on this at the next meeting.
 Date for Fall Conference: Though it’s an RCC Holiday, we are going to
tentatively schedule November 13th for our Student Conference. Please mark
your calendars now, and be sure to tell students to start thinking NOW about
papers that they can present in the fall. They can even start imagining panels, etc.
 Program Review
VI.
For Discussion/ Forum: What is district/ what is campus—brochures, other
promotional materials, field trips, etc
will
We will discuss this when Norco is here to be a part of the discussion.
Sylvia Thomas has checked to make sure that the three colleges will continue
to use library databases. District is taking a more active role in negotiating
contracts with the library vendors.
VII.
VIII.
Sub-Committee Meetings
Adjournment
Next Meeting
Friday, May 22nd
12:30-2:30
Location TBA