Honors
- Mission Statment
The WSU Honors Program is a home for inquisitive students of any discipline, regardless of prior GPA or academic history, looking for
unconventional and supportive learning environments. Our mission is to build and maintain an inclusive community of intellectually curious
and academically adventurous students, faculty and staff where together we can explore our full intellectual, academic, and cultural
potential, and cultivate a lifelong love of learning and civic engagement. - Student Learning Outcomes
Honors Program Learning Outcomes
Students will:
- Practice clear and compelling written and/or creative expression.
- Engage in critical thinking that is open-minded, objective, and as free as possible from prejudice and presupposition.
- Undertake the comprehension of abstract arguments and the ability to move between the general and the particular.
- Encounter a variety of human experience, exploring both its universality and its diversity.
- Curriculum Grid
- Program and Contact Information
The Weber State University Honors Program offers students a comfortable and friendly learning environment. We offer a:
- Place for students looking for an academic community, both through classes and in the Honors Center.
- Number of small, challenging, and creative classes, many of which fulfill General Education requirements.
- Commitment to diversity, in terms of the variety of classes offered, as well as our respect for individual differences.
- Discussion-based approach to classes that often includes collaborative group projects or activities
- Preparation for professional life and graduate school after Weber.
Contact Information:
Dr. Dan Bedford
Weber State University
3921 Central Campus Dr. Dept 2904
Ogden, UT 84408-2904
Stewart Library, Rm
801-626-7591 - Assessment Plan
The Honors Program’s assessment goal is to assess all learning outcomes—both general education and Honors-specific—each time any
Honors class is taught. However, because faculty teaching for Honors may only teach once every few years (or sometimes, just once, period),
ensuring faculty compliance with this goal is challenging. The Honors Program is moving into a situation where we can afford to be more
selective about faculty teaching for Honors (demand for teaching classes now exceeds the supply of classes that need to be taught), and
faculty who consistently do not submit assessment data will not be invited to return.
Additionally, Honors is moving towards outcomes-based assessment for Honors learning outcomes (we remain tied to course-based
assessment for general education learning outcomes). All students completing University Honors will be required to take two 1-credit hour
classes, the first to build an ePortfolio of work, the second to reflect on and present that body of work. Assessment of Honors Program
learning outcomes will take place via assessment of the ePortfolio in the second 1-credit hour class. Because the ePortfolio will be
representative of a student’s body of work at Weber State, is intended to demonstrate intellectual, personal, and interpersonal growth, and will
be linked to learning outcomes derived from the Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE rubrics, the ePortfolio is expected
to be a strong indicator of student learning while at WSU. The ePortfolio 1-credit classes, and the new Honors Program learning outcomes,
are expected to be implemented for AY 2022-23. - Assessment Report Submissions
- 2021-2022
1) Review and comment on the trend of minority students enrolling in your classes (particularly lower-division, GEN Ed) and
in your programs.The trend of minority students enrolling in General and University Honors is in the right direction, but absolute numbers remain too
low (when compared against the percentage of ethnic and/or racial groups in the population of Ogden as a whole, for example).
According to the WSU Report Gallery, General Honors students were 82% Whilte/18% non-White in 2014-15, and 68% White/32%
non-White in 2020-21. University Honors students were 88% White/12% non-White in 2014-15, and 71% White/29% non-White in
2020-21. Honors has been undergoing major revisions over the last year or so, with the goal of increasing enrollment from
traditionally underrepresented students. It is expected that enrollment by minority students in Honors classes and the Honors
Program will increase, as the requirement for Presidential Scholars to take Honors classes has been relaxed. Presidential Scholars
have been selected using conventional metrics (SAT/ACT score and high school GPA), resulting in a student group in which White
students are overrepresented (indeed, Presidential Scholars were 90% White in 2020-21, their lowest percentage since 2014-15. As
this group of students (many of whom are extremely capable) ebbs as major constituents of Honors class SCHs, more room will open
up for other students, including those from minorities.2) What support (from enrollment services, advising, first-year transition office, access & diversity, etc.) do you need to help
you recruit and retain students?Honors has considerable baggage with many students. Perceptions of Honors as being highly selective, typically based on GPA, are
commonplace. Thus, recruiting and retaining minority students is expected to be challenging. Assistance in the form of an advisor
position, with a particular focus on minority students, would help enormously.3) We have invited you to re-think your program assessment. What strategies are you considering? What support or help
would you like?As part of a comprehensive revision of the Honors Program (mission statement, requirements, core competencies, learning
outcomes), program assessment will shift from course-based assessment to assessment of program outcomes. This will be
accomplished by requiring students to complete ePortfolios, in which they record and reflect upon their work as WSU students.
Students will take two 1-credit hour classes, one to build their portfolio, the second to reflect on its contents. Assessment of the
portfolios will focus on 11 learning outcomes derived from AAC&U VALUE rubrics, and will serve also as assessment of program
effectiveness. Support in offering the ePortfolio classes would be valuable, as nobody working with the Honors Program has
experience or expertise in this area at present.
4) Finally, we are supporting our Concurrent Enrollment accreditation process. Does your program offer concurrent
enrollment classes? If so, have you been able to submit the information requested from the Concurrent Enrollment office?
Staff from OIE will reach out to you in the next few months to assist in finalizing that data submission as well as gather
information for concurrent Gen Ed assessment.It is the strongly held view of the Honors Program director and faculty advisory board that Honors classes should not be offered to
Concurrent Enrollment students. This is therefore not an approach that Honors will be pursuing in the foreseeable future.The full report is available for viewing.
- 2019-2020
The Honors Department conducted a 5 year program review with full self-study during the spring of 2019. Those results are presented in place of the Biennial Assessment. Please reference those documents for information that includes data for the 2019/20 academic year.
- 2017
No report was submitted.
- 2016
No report was submitted.
- 2015
1) Reflecting on this year’s assessment(s), how does the evidence of student learning impact your faculty’s confidence in the program being reviewed; how does that analysis change when compared with previous assessment evidence?
- We have strengthened our assessment tools by aligning the Honors mission statement with our learning outcomes, and ensuring that all our assessment documents are aligned with one another. By creating consistency across the board, we have established a solid foundation for collecting valid assessment data.
- We are asking faculty who teach in the program to do more assessment than previously, but most faculty are willing to participate even when there’s a learning curve.
2) With whom did you share the results of the year’s assessment efforts?
- Assessment information is shared with the Associate Provost every year.
Information from our 2014 program review has been shared with:
- The Associate Provost, to whom the Honors Program reports.
- The Executive Committee of Faculty Senate.
- Both the Associate Provost and the committee have written a response.
3) Based on your program’s assessment findings, what subsequent action will your program take?- In the short term, assessment data helps us identify strong teachers (who we invite to teach again) and less able teachers as we put together our class schedules.
- In the long term, we are still learning to collect and make sense of valid assessment data. In a few years’ time, that data will be useful as we revisit our mission statement and learning outcomes.
The full report is available for viewing.
- 2014
The Honors program conducted a five year program review with full self-study during the spring of 2015. Those results are presented in place of the Annual Assessment Report. Please reference those documents for information that includes data for the 2013/14 academic year.
- 2013
No report was submitted.
- 2021-2022
- Program Review