2010 Best Honors Administrative Practices (BHAP)

Best Honors Administrative Practices (BHAP) sessions are designed to allow participants with all levels of honors experience to focus on a number of key administrative issues facing honors programs and honors colleges. Among the 2010 BHAP presenters are five past NCHC presidents, NCHC’s current Vice President, five NCHC committee chairs, and eight NCHC Recommended Site Visitors.  All BHAP sessions will be held in the Mary Lou Williams room of the Kansas City Marriott Downtown Hotel on Friday and Saturday.

BHAP-1.  /Certification of Honors Programs/Honors Colleges:  Current Rhythms & Measures
Gary Bell, Texas Tech University
Greg Lanier, University of West Florida

As Honors moves closer and closer to becoming a truly professional component of the higher education landscape, we need to adjust our practices so that honors programs and colleges meet consistent standards of excellence.  Voluntary certification of honors programs is already happening in Massachusetts, but shouldn't such voluntary certification of honors programs and honors colleges be offered by NCHC nationwide as a service to its members who wish to seek this form of external validation of their efforts?

BHAP-2.  External Help for Internal Development:  NCHC Recommended Site Visitors
Rosalie Otero, University of New Mexico
Robert (Bob) Spurrier, Oklahoma State University

Explore how bringing NCHC Recommended Site Visitors to your campus as a consultants or as an external program review team can help you navigate the currents and undercurrents that can propel your honors program or honors college forward, divert it into the backwaters, or even threaten to capsize it.

BHAP-3.  Honors Student Recruitment, Advising, Retention:  Some Keys to Success
George Mariz, Western Washington University
Jessica Roark, Oklahoma State University

This session will explore ways to maximize student recruitment and retention not only independently, but also by tapping the energies and resources of other programs (such as Admissions, Housing, departments and colleges) to the fullest advantage.

BHAP-4.  Show Me the Money:  External Fundraising and Alumni Relations
Larry Andrews, Kent State University
Charlie Slavin, University of Maine

It has become increasingly important for honors leaders to become involved in advancement work, including fundraising and alumni relations.  In this session we will focus on establishing an alumni donor base and on balancing opportunistic improvisation with systematic, rhythmic cycles of activity.

BHAP-5.  Honors Director as Bridge Builder:  Establishing Routes for Coordination and Cooperation
Sam Schuman, University of North Carolina-Asheville
Douglass Sullivan-González, University of Mississippi

Successful honors programs/colleges can't exist in an institutional vacuum:  they need to communicate effectively their character, and their value, to students, faculty and senior administrators across campus.  Two experienced honors leaders share strategies for persuasive communication across a broad range of campus constituencies.

BHAP-6.  Getting the Word Out:  Building Community through Electronic Communications
Craig Cobane, Western Kentucky University
Rick Scott, University of Central Arkansas

This session will explore the use of online mediums to help develop
both an intellectual and social community. Students are already heavily
engaged in online communication; the issue is how to utilize this
reality and harness it to the goals of Honors education.

BHAP-7.  The Many Hats of Honors Administrators
Ada Long, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Kate Bruce, University of North Carolina-Wilmington

This session is designed to provide guidelines, both ideal and realistic, jazzy and mundane, for managing an honors administrator's huge array of tasks from recruitment, admissions, curriculum development, and advising to public relations, crisis management, and fundraising.