College of Letters and Science Faculty Document No. 568 November 2, 2000 Honors Program Committee 1999-2000 Annual Report The Committee met five times during 1999-2000: September 30, 1999; February 29, 2000; March 7, 2000, April 18, 2000, and April 25, 2000. Lawrence Baldassaro continued as Director of the Honors Program, and Janet Jesmok as Assistant Director. The three Bradley Assistant Professors continued their three-year terms in the Honors Program: Katharine Streip, Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, University of California, Berkeley; David Southward, Ph.D. in English, Yale University; and Eric Wiland, Bradley Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago. Wiland is in his final year. The Bradley Professors are voting members of the Honors Program Committee. The HPC oversaw recruitment for a new Bradley Professor of Philosophy. John Koethe chaired the committee. Other members were Michael Liston, Philosophy; Merry Wiesner-Hanks, History; Cyrus Smith, Education; Melissa Donlin, Honors Student; and Larry Baldassaro, Honors Program (ex officio). The search committee selected 35 applications from the 101 submitted, held eight telephone interviews and three campus interviews. The three finalists were Adam Kovach, Lance Hickey, and Johannes Bulhof. The search committee voted unanimously to recommend Dr. Adam Kovach, Ph.D., University of Indiana. The HPC approved this recommendation. Dr. Kovach accepted the appointment. Following a suggestion by Dean Marshall Goodman that the Honors Program become an Honors College (February 29, 2000, meeting), the committee unanimously passed the following two-part motion: First, that the University Honors Program be renamed the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Honors College, an entity within the College of Letters and Science. Second, that this change eventually be supported by distinctive and larger facilities, expanded faculty recruitment, scholarship support, and general program enhancement. The committee's rationale was that the university-wide Honors Program operates de facto as a college--setting and implementing admission, retention, and graduation requirements and granting a special diploma. The recommended name change and commensurate expansion would enhance visibility, recruitment, and fund-raising. The transformation from program to college would build on the existing administrative structure and full-time teaching staff. The HPC recommended that the Honors Director sit on the Academic Deans' Council. Vice Chancellor Watters met with the HPC to address this request. After discussion with Chancellor Zimpher and Dean Goodman, he decided that the ADC was not the appropriate venue for giving the Honors Director access to administrative decision-making. The HPC unanimously approved a recommendation that the Honors Director sit on the Faculty Academic Planning Budget Committee (FAPBC). Honors Program Reports: the Freshman Admissions Report continued with strong Freshman admission figures, with 132 freshmen and 74 continuing/transfer students admitted. Over half of the new students are again outside of the College of Letters and Science. The admission report now reflects not only summer freshman admission figures, but also the number of continuing/transfer students admitted as a result of our 3.5 recruitment letter from January 1 through September 1. The gender ratios are 64% F to 36% M. The Honors Enrollment Reports indicated 387 students enrolled in Honors courses for the first semester and 328 for the second semester, an all-time high. Total enrollment of 715 is up 19 students (2.7%) over 1998-99. The report also reflects more students taking advantage of independent course options such as Research in Honors and Senior Honors Thesis. The Recruitment and Retention Report noted 432 students in the Honors Program, an increase of 5 students for 1999-2000. The graduation figures for 1999-2000 were extraordinary with 13 students graduating in December 1999 and 34 students in May/August 2000, for a total of 47, a 60% increase over 1998-99. Six students completed a Senior Honors Thesis and one, a Senior Honors Project. The HPC unanimously approved a revised retention policy for students in the Honors Program, requiring that they meet the following expectations: In order to continue in the Honors Program, students must maintain the following minimum grade point averages for work done at UWM: < 24 credits earned   3.2 24-56credits earned   3.3 >56 credits earned   3.4 Note: Students admitted as freshmen who fail to earn at least a 3.0 grade point average during their first semester of full-time enrollment at UWM (or their first 12 credits) cannot enroll in an Honors class in their second semester. Students admitted as new freshmen must complete Honors 200 in their freshman year. Students who do not take Honors courses for two consecutive semesters will be considered ";inactive" and dropped from the Honors Program. The Committee approved the following new Honors seminar topics: Honors 200:   "War Stories: Art and Experience from the Front Lines" (Lydia Equitz) Honors 200:   "Is God Dead? Belief and Unbelief in Modern Thought and Literaturequot" (Lydia Equitz) Honors 200:   ";History and Mythology" (Judith Beall) Honors 200:   "The Beat Generation and Its Origins" (Katharine Streip) Honors 380:   ";A Poetry Workshop" (Marilyn Taylor) Honors 680:   "Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Jazz Modernism" (Bernard Gendron) Honors 680:   "Home Constructions: Meaning Into Built Form" (Sherry Ahrentzen) Anthro 381:    "Human Adaptation" (Trudy Turner) English 685:    "James Joyce's Ulysses and the Provocations of Reading" (Kath.Streip) English 685:    "Shakespeare and Theatrical Traditions" (Mark Netzloff) English 685:    "American Crossings: Studies in Twentieth Century Ethnic Literature" Div) (Kristie Hamilton) English 685:    "Education in the Novel" (David Southward) GeoSci 381:      "Lyell's Principles of Geology and Historical Geology (Mark Harris) History 398:    "American Religions: The Formative Era" (David Hoeveler) History 398:    "The Problem of Nature in the Enlightenment" (Jeffrey Merrick) History 398:    "American Religions: The Modern Era" (Hoeveler) History 398:    "History of American Expansionism From 1776 to 1898" (John Schroeder) Italian 383:      "Love, Sacred and Profane: Petrarch, Boccaccio, Machiavelli (Larry Baldassaro) Sci 380:         "The Democratic Revolution in the Developing World" (H. Handelman) Sci 380:         "Classical Political Thought" (Terry Nardin) Sci 380:         "Modern Political Thought" (Terry Nardin) Psych 380:     "Psychodynamic Theory and Its Applications" (Gayle Norbury) As a result of last year's HPC subcommittee which explored the program's recent difficulty engaging faculty to teach Honors seminars, the Honors Program established a Faculty Development Grant Program. The first target division was the natural sciences. Both the Vice Chancellor and the Dean of Letters and Science agreed to allocate $5000 each to fund an Honors Faculty Development Grant. This seed money will provide both a summer stipend or release time for the faculty member and replacement funds for departments. An HPC Sub-Committee oversaw the awards that were given to Arthur Brooks, Professor of Biological Sciences, and Claudia Barreto, Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences. The two new courses--Professor Barreto's "Learning from the Dinosaurs: Understanding Patterns and Processes of Life" and Professor Brooks' "Water: The Essence of Life"--will be taught in spring 2000-01. In addition to Bradley Professors Southward, Streip and Wiland, faculty members serving on the Honors Program Committee during 1999-2000 were: Lawrence Baldassaro (ex officio), F. Xavier Baron, Mark Harris, John Koethe, Richard O'Malley, Corliss Phillabaum, Cyrus Smith, Walter Weare (Chair), and Brian Wishne. Student members were Ben Brzeski, Jeff Francki, Mark Uecker, Erika Wagner, Robin Weigert, Andy Wojciehowski. Assistant Director Janet Jesmok and Assistant to the Director Lawrence Roscioli served ex officio. The committee did not elect an HPC chair for the 2000-01academic year. It will do so at its first meeting in the fall.