Nagle to lead revamped IV Honors Program
By Jason Hochstatter
IV Leader Staff, Jan 25, 2007
The IVCC Honors Program will be experiencing an
overhaul this Fall semester to improve student use of the program.
In order to be eligible to participate, students will still
have to maintain a 3.5 grade point average, but many aspects have changed.
According to Ryen Nagle, the new director of the Honors
Program, in order to qualify to graduate with honors, students will need to take
two special honors sections of normal classes with added challenges, take a one
credit hour class in leadership, and participate in on-campus groups in
leadership positions or projects in their community.
Tara Coburn, the last director of the Honors Program and
leader of the committee to change the Honors Program, said that graduating with
honors can help make a student stand out beyond high grades when transferring to
a school that is competitive to get into.
Coburn said that previously students needed to take an Honors
Colloquium class that was usually theme based. “For example, during the election
year the theme was American politics,” said Coburn.
In addition, students also had to go above and beyond in
their normal classes. “In a chemistry class, a student may do data collection
for a research project at another university,” said Coburn.
Both Coburn and Nagle said changes were needed to the former
Honors Program. “There has been a decline in enrollment in the Honors Program,”
said Nagle. “Normally there are around 25 students enrolled at once, but last
Spring Semester there were only five to 10.”
Nagle also added that in that same semester nearly a fourth
of all students at IVCC were eligible to be enrolled. Last spring semester,
plans were made to update the program because of these enrollment drops and
because, according to Coburn, “It was confusing.”