Honors College to start the year with new minor requirements

By JASMINE MOORE The Breeze

As the new school year begins, the Honors College will be using an adjusted Honors minor curriculum. The new program removes barriers to completing the minor in an effort to ease student stress and encourage retention in the Honors College program, Bethany Blackstone, dean of the Honors College, said.

The Honors College officially changed its requirements on March 27 in an email was sent to students completing the college’s minor.

Blackstone said these changes are one of many made to the Honors College since its inception as the Honors Program in 1961. Its last curriculum update was about two years ago, Blackstone said.

Previously, the Honors minor was 25 credit hours and required a capstone project. The project is a summation of the student’s college experience. New changes include a 19-credit requirement and optional capstone. Further, Blackstone said, Honors students are now able to choose between two routes. One option is the “Minor only” route, in which a student completes just the 19 required credit hours.

The other option is the “Minor and Honors Scholar” pathway, which Blackstone said will involve the completion of a thesis or a senior ePortfolio project. The thesis would have students have certain approved classes within their major or minor, complete a project, and presentation requirements. The senior ePortfolio project requires the completion of HON 401, Introduction to Honors ePortfolio, and HON 402, Honors ePortfolio. Classes are found in the undergraduate catalog for the Honors Interdisciplinary Studies Minor.

Blackstone said the curriculum changes are designed to create more flexibility for Honors College students. As Honors students first work toward their minor, Blackstone said freshman students would take first-year experience classes, which is an introduction class, while transfer students would take Honors 101.

All JMU students need 12 credit hours of general education courses or interdisciplinary honors seminars, Blackstone said. Once the general education curriculum is completed, all JMU students have completed 13 credit hours.

To fulfill the remaining six credit hours, Blackstone suggested students enroll in experiential learning courses worth three credit hours. These courses include required diversity courses. There are 42 diversity classes listed on the undergraduate catalog for the Honors

Interdisciplinary Studies Minor.

The second option, Blackstone said, is the “Minor and Honors Scholar” route, which involves the completion of 19 credit hours of the Honors curriculum, a mix of introduction, honors, diversity, and experiential learning courses, plus a capstone. Blackstone said the completion of these guidelines won’t only provide students with the Honors Interdisciplinary Studies Minor but will award the Honors Scholars designation and a capstone distinction in their subject of the capstone’s field.

Blackstone said many Honors students wait until their senior year to complete their capstone project. As a consequence, many students could not complete their projects because of the accumulated workload. Making the capstone optional allows students to change their path and allow them to have more pathways, she said.

When the JMU Honors College was called the Honors Program, it was only accessible to students in their later college years. After the program was changed into the Honors College in 2017, a new focus was made on establishing a network of Honors students who were connected from the beginning of their time at JMU.

“We draw students from all majors, from all colleges,” Blackstone said. “The thing that really sort of defines the honor student is that they are a student who thought this type of curricular and co-curricular experience would enrich their day and their experience.”

Junior Taylor Long, a justice studies major in the Honors College, said she likes the honors capstone but appreciates the freedom of the new requirements.

“I thought that it was a cool opportunity to allow students to be able to work alongside professors and create a thesis,” Long said. “I liked the idea of giving that option to students that are up for the challenge.”

Long said she believes these adjusted requirements will help ease these problems and provide students with “more freedom to have the experience they want.”

“I know the seniors that I have talked to said this was making their lives overall stressful, as it should be,” Long said. “I just think having the choice of picking whether you want to complete it or not is best for the student.”