June 2, 2021

Getting to Know Michigan State University Honors College

Too often Michigan State University gets overshadowed by its Big Ten sister school, the University of Michigan. But Michigan State’s Honors College offers enough to make prospective Wolverines consider becoming Spartans. Admission to the Honors College is by invitation. But prospective freshmen can submit an additional essay and mid-year senior […]
May 5, 2021

Getting to Know UMass Commonwealth Honors College

During the fall I wrote that public honors colleges could be winners within our COVID reality. I have had the privilege to visit some in person, but none as large as the Commonwealth Honors College at UMass-Amherst. I had an opportunity to take a short virtual tour of the Honors […]
November 4, 2020

Update: Rutgers Honors College, New Brunswick, NJ

I have paid two visits to the Rutgers Honors College since it opened in 2015. It’s an impressive student-oriented public honors college facility, as you will from the pictures on my Pinterest page. This year, like all academic and services programs at Rutgers, the Honors College went virtual. I invite […]
October 20, 2020

Rutgers Offers An Honors Level Engineering Education

Engineering education comes in different forms. A small number of small colleges offer engineering majors. There are also small and mid-sized (3,000 to 7,500 students) institutes of technology. Still others pursue their engineering education at large universities such as Rutgers-New Brunswick. Each has their pluses and minuses. Undergrads receive the […]
June 11, 2020

What is a Living-Learning Community?

The living-learning community was one of the topics that I covered during an interview with Dr. Cynthia Colon, host of Destination YOUniversity. No matter the size of the college, there will usually be more than one on campus. Rutgers, for example, has more than 70. So, what does a living-learning […]
May 5, 2020

Creative Colleges: Public Honors Colleges

Public honors colleges may become the next winners in our new reality. They offer a small residential college educational experience and the resources that you can only find at a larger school. As I mentioned in my previous post on creative colleges, the winners are going to be the schools […]
March 13, 2017

The Upsides and Downsides of the Public College Honors Program

Last week I paid a visit to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), our state’s research and technological university and got a preview of one of the better public college honors programs in the country. NJIT’s public college honors program is special because it offers academic tracks for students […]
September 30, 2015

Recruiting for the Public Honors College

Last week I paid a visit to the new Honors College building at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. It’s an impressive student-oriented public honors college facility, as you will from the pictures that I have added to my Pinterest page. I wouldn’t mind living there myself as a guest faculty member (there […]
August 26, 2015

Questions to Ask About a Public University Honors Program

I recently purchase A Review of Fifty Public University Honors Programs edited by John Willingham, and written with the help of a PhD statistician. While each public university honors program is rated in this book, the programs are not ranked against each other. That would make little sense. Different public universities have different […]