Hendriksen
views
campaign
and the
future.
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Oregon daily _ _
emerald
Friday, November 19, 1982
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 84. Number 56
First-rate education at a second-hand price
University Honors College, a homegrown Harvard
The program is open to those willing to work
By Frank Shaw
Of the Emerald
Think of a school with a small enrollment,
where the average class-size is only 15 to 18
students, where requirements for admission are a
grade point average of about 3 6 and Scholastic
Aptitude Test scores of 1200 or better
Reed? Harvard? Yale?
Try the University Honors College
Alan Kimball, Honors College director, says
the program has one of the most challenging
undergraduate curriculums in the world
While other University departments face
continuing budget cuts and some undergraduate
classes have enrollments of more than 300
students, Kimball says Honors College students
deserve the high quality instruction they receive
"I think the program is not only fair but
essential, ' he says The program is oped to
anyone who was willing to work hard and get
good grades (in high school)."
Karin Keutzer, an Honors College junior,
agrees that everyone has the opportunity to be in
the Honors College if they're willing to work hard
She stresses that Honors College students are
here primarily to get a quality education
However, Katherine Richards, a junior in
business, is not so sure the Honors College is
equitable
"In a way it’s not really fair that they're paying
the same amount of money and getting a better
education," she says
That problem has to be put in a proper
perspective, Kimball says
Many students in the state and in the nation
would like to go to college but cannot afford
tuition, he says They are, in effect, in the same
situation as the other students at the University
are in regard to the Honors College, he says
If there were no Honors College, world-class
undergraduate education would be available only
to the very rich.” Kimball says
Kimball says the Honors College attempts to
keep Oregon’s brightest high school students in
the state system of higher education Without the
Honors College many of these students couldn't
afford a comparable education, he says
Tim Jones, a fifth-year architecture senior,
says the system is a good one but needs im
provement He says the University’s new policy of
charging students more for remedial classes
should be applied to the Honors College
One of the benefits Honors College students
receive is smaller classes
A small class is much more interactive, and
there is much more dialogue between the
students.” says Steven Keele, a psychology
professor who teaches both Honors College and
regular University classes.
John Givens, a junior who has taken several
Honors College courses, agrees honors courses
are better Because classes are smaller, and
teachers can interact more with you and with the
class "
With only a few exceptions, class sizes are
limited to 25 or fewer, Kimball says And 100-level
courses are restricted to Honors College students
only
But everyone who enters the Honors College
doesn't graduate from the program.
Junior Laura Blakemore was in the Honors
College and withdrew after two years One reason
she gave for her withdrawal was because she felt
she "wasn’t experiencing the real college life."
Photo by Bob Baker
Average class size in the University's Honors College is 15 to 18
students.
Tougher college entry plan
has school districts balking
PORTLAND (AP) — Oregon's smaller
school districts are balking at a propo
sal to toughen entrance requirements
tor Oregon s state colleges and univer
sities
The 109-member Oregon Small
Schools Association voted unanimous
ly this month to ask Chancellor Bud
Davis, to postpone his proposal for
more rigorous course requirements to
allow further study.
Even some of the state's largest
school districts are concerned that
Davis may be pushing too quickly for
high schools and students to meet the
new requirements
Davis, however, sard this week that
he will resist attempts to postpone his
plan, which will be discussed today by
the State Board of Higher Education.
Davis proposed that high school
graduates seeking admission to state
colleges or universities in the fall of
1985 be required to have taken four
years of English, three years of math
ematics two years of science, three
years of social studies and two years of
other college preparatory classes
Many school districts worry that they
will not be able to adjust their curricula
in time to meet the 1985 deadline.
We have about 300 enrolled in our
high school,” said Glenn Dorn, Jeffer
son School District superintendent.
• There is no question this wilt cause us
some problems
We teach some of these subjects
only every other year,” he said. And
we don t have enough staff as it is
now ”
Don Miller, OSSA executive director,
said Davis' proposal involves an impor
tant policy issue. The association is
concerned that Davis' toughened
requirements are in effect telling high
schools what courses they should
offer, he said
In exchange for the tougher gradua
tion requirements, Davis said he is
willing to back off from a requirement
that students attain a high school
grade-point average of 2.75 to be ad
mitted at the University or Oregon State
University. That requirement was raised
from 2.5 this fall
A 2.5 average in the college prepara
tory classes he is proposing will be a
better indicator of potential college
success than a 2.75 average in the
current high school program, he said
Tougher course requirements will
mean a more rigorous senior year for
many students, Davis said f-'or many
students, who have completed nearly
all their graduation requirements by
their senior year, the final year is a
“time of frivolity and fun" rather than
academic growth, he said
Writing your own text book
may cause thesis blues
By Joan Herman
Of the Emerald
Most University students read texts
written by someone else.
Honors College seniors write their own
kind of text: the thesis — and therein lies
a problem.
About half of the students who fail to
graduate from the Honors College do so
because "they just don’t know how to
deal emotionally with the thesis,’’ says
Alan Kimball, honors college director.
‘'It’s fear. Greek roots. Thesis. It
sounds like something only egg
heads and bookworms of the most ar
cane sort would ever do," Kimball says.
And the first problem hits before the
student even starts writing — coming up
with a solid idea.
Kimball says it’s difficult for students to
choose a specific topic because they
"don't get a chance to do this type of
original scholarship very often.
"That's part of the whole process,
learning how to define a problem, to
reduce it to terms that can be handled, to
start work gathering that material, then
focusing on it and making a narrative out
of it," he says.
This "text of significance," as Kimball
dubs it, can be anywhere from 20 to 100
pages long, but the average length is
about 40 to 60 pages.
Carl Lesher, a senior in English litera
ture, agrees
chance to take everything I've learned so
far in the course of this college exper
ience and try to do something with it,”
says Lesher.
Kimball says thesis topics vary as
much as the students writing them and
range from Lesher's analysis of T. S.
Eliot's "The Wasteland” to a physics
project on quantam mechanics. About
40 percent of the theses are in technical
fields, and 60 percent are in the liberal
and fine arts area.
The process begins at the end of the
junior year when students choose topics
in their major fields, find an adviser in
that field and develops a reading list.
Once students finish writing their
theses, they submit them to a committee
comprised of the thesis adviser, a faculty
member from the student’s department
and an honors college faculty member.
The student then must defend the
thesis to the committee during an hour
long oral examination. The committee
then decides to grant a no-pass, pass or
pass with distinction.
Kimball says theses are rarely rejected
because the student usually discovers
the thesis is not working long before
completion.
Some theses even get published,
usually those done in the physical
science labs where students are able to
work with members of the National
Academy of the Sciences, he says.