Continuing Dropped 50.0 14

to hypothesize that so far, with the increased access to honors through holistic admissions, we have managed to sustain a level of engagement and participation that is similar to or stronger than automatically admitted students. Compared to automatic admis- sion invitations, greater attention is paid to individual student profiles during the application process for holistic admissions, and it is possible that this hands-on process is a more effective way to assess preparation for and predict success in our honors program.

Through continuing program assessment, we hope to clarify further how programmatic actions can contribute to more diverse enrollments. Implementing holistic admissions within our pro- gram has been a significant positive change, but, over time, we hope to assess the impact of intercultural immersions, the recruitment of outstanding faculty of color to teach in honors, enhanced efforts to engage students equitably in undergraduate research, and the inte- gration of courses on diversity-related topics and civic engagement in honors. We believe this kind of multi-year, multi-pronged effort

figure 1. graduationat term 8 (4-year graduation rates) for

selected cohortsand campus populations

Source: Office of Institutional Research, University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire

60 50 40 30 20 10 00

All Honors Non-Honors Holistic Students Honors Campus Population 2004–05 2007–08 2010–11 Pe rc en tage

is required to move resolutely toward inclusive excellence. The data we have compiled provide multiple means of assessing our work so far and planning new interventions to support honors student success. Of course, as a humanities professor, I recognize that these numbers reflect an instructive but limited range of measurable results. They tell only a part of the story; they constitute a single episode in an epic tale.

The next part of this chapter provides narrative commentary on my personal path toward an occupation of honors, followed in Part IV by detailed occupation strategies that can embed inclusive excel- lence into the common practices of honors education.

figure 2. program statusby admission method (automaticvs.

holistic), spring 2015 snapshot

Source: Office of Institutional Research, University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire

0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Number Enrolled

RHON: Students with “honors program” status who are not actively taking courses.

REHN: Students who are currently taking honors courses. Total RHON REHN Total RHON REHN Total RHON REHN Ho lis tic Au to ma tic Al l 602 86 516 489 78 411 113 8 105

partiii:equity

-

Personal Origins of an Honors Career

To illustrate the rewards and challenges of pursuing inclusive excellence in honors, this section highlights my personal journey to honors leadership. My passion for inclusive excellence in honors stems in part from my cultural identity as a first-generation college graduate and a faculty member of color serving at a predominantly white university. Among many other inspirations, remembering my parents’ lives and legacies helps me maintain my commitment to social justice in honors teaching. My mother was born in 1927 as the third of ten children in a family living in poverty in Forrest City, Arkansas, a town named after Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan member Nathaniel Bedford Forrest. Amid systematic legal discrimination against African Americans across the economic and educational systems, my mother valued education highly and served as an educator in several capacities through her life despite not having an opportunity to earn a four-year degree. At age 80, she was recognized as Grandmother of the Year at a Head Start pro- gram where she worked long after her first retirement. Earlier in her life, her tireless effort enabled the successful rearing of her chil- dren through many years as a single parent. During his service in World War II, my father survived a boat attack in the Pacific Ocean and, eventually, made his way to Omaha, Nebraska, to a military hospital where he was treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He was never able, however, to benefit from the GI Bill or join a local union to leverage his military experience into a civilian trucking job, and he was not a stable member of our family by the time I came of age. Nevertheless, I remain inspired by the extraor- dinary experiences of both of my parents in persistently seeking opportunities for education and employment against the backdrop of institutional racism. These family stories are a constant reminder to me that barriers to educational attainment still exist and con- tinue to affect the lives of first-generation students.

Inspired by my mother and my siblings (all three of my siblings have earned a bachelor’s degree or higher), I became interested early

on in U.S. cultural history, an interest that culminated in a focus on the Black Arts Movement in my dissertation research. Studying this extended effort among activists during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s to increase economic and political independence and to create art that expressed the culture and consciousness of Black people was instructive. My interest in cultural history was complemented by years of participation in debate as a youth and a cultivated interest in public policy. These elements led to an interest in population demographics, which I find continually useful for considering how well public resources granted to universities are used equitably to serve all student communities.

When I think back on what it took for me to acquire sufficient resources and sustain the personal drive to earn a PhD as a first- generation student, I am reminded that structural barriers can make a degree-seeking path difficult. These barriers can be finan- cial, or they may stem from the climate at a particular university. These barriers can also correlate with the availability or exclu- sivity of high-impact programs: undergraduate research, study abroad, internships, participation in honors, or other activities that strengthen engagement and add value to the degree. To enroll in many of these programs, students need to be confident in seeking out opportunities and must be able to build strong relationships with faculty. I believe it is common for underserved students to begin their student careers with limited information about these opportunities and how to access them.

Equity-Minded Teaching in Honors: Courses, Themes, and Faculty Identity

While I did not participate in honors as an undergraduate student, I began teaching honors courses early in my university teaching career, which I greatly enjoyed. Honors provided an oppor- tunity to go beyond the standard curriculum by offering courses that allowed greater exploration of research interests. Teaching in honors at UWEC enabled me to go beyond my primary graduate research area of African American literature; I could teach courses that examined broader social problems and social justice strategies.

For instance, these themes were integrated into a section of an hon- ors umbrella course, “Political Ideas in Literature: Literature and War.” When first teaching this course around 2006 (during the sec- ond Gulf War), I felt strongly that more of the honors curriculum should provide perspectives on current events and the large human questions that were being played out daily in our common lives.

Teaching “Literature and War” moved me out of my comfort zone through the necessity of integrating topics such as Just War Theory and soldiers’ memoirs during wartime. The content I devel- oped over time in this course was useful for additional studies of trauma and incarceration in subsequent courses. In more recent courses in literature and even in first-year honors composition, I have engaged students in some of the interdisciplinary literature on mass incarceration, aggressive masculinity, and mass media framing of crime incidents. I make a point of discussing stories of resilience in response to acts of violence and invite guests to class who have personal experience related to these issues. Explorations of this content strengthen my students’ preparation for future work and life in a diverse world, given that many of their careers and lives will be touched by survivors of trauma, not to mention that the stu- dents themselves may be trauma survivors. An additional benefit of examining these topics in the classroom has been an improved rela- tionship with student affairs units that respond to everyday traumas experienced by students. Units such as residence life, counseling, and campus police all play essential roles in creating a safe and supportive learning environment. I have made it a personal goal to sustain strong relationships with campus professionals in these areas and to collaborate with them to support student success.

I mention these formative experiences to suggest that mutu- ally fruitful relationships can be developed through the greater inclusion of faculty of color in honors. The curricular flexibility within our UWEC honors program has been crucial to my personal development as an educator of color. I would encourage honors administrators in other settings to actively review their programs to see if contributions from faculty of color as well as equity-minded faculty are reflected in the curriculum and across the program.

The Value of Administrative Collaboration in Honors: A Personal Account

Close and effective collaboration with an administrative col- league, former UWEC Honors Program Director Jeff Vahlbusch, has been a signature experience in aligning the goals of inclusivity and excellence in the program. When I joined Dr. Vahlbusch as Honors Faculty Fellow in 2009, I brought to the table an administra- tive disposition that welcomes calculated risk-taking and innovative change. Collaborating with Vahlbusch has nurtured honors as a setting on our campus where new ideas can be vetted and piloted on a reasonably short calendar, where crossing disciplinary bound- aries is viewed with appreciation rather than suspicion, and where student academic development and personal development are equally respected and aligned in program design. Over the course of a multi-year collaboration, Vahlbusch and I have maintained a willingness to work closely over extended days, months, and years to develop common understandings that can be leveraged into pro- gram change. Sustaining mutual openness and honest expression of opinion when it comes to highly charged issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion can be challenging, but if honors is going to be a lead- ing enterprise in a move toward inclusive excellence, honors leaders need an extraordinary willingness to give and receive constructive feedback and a never-failing persistence to seek new strategies for the improvement of diversity-related outcomes. That Vahlbusch and I are similar in terms of age, gender, academic affiliations in language studies and the humanities, and a commitment to honors education is an advantage. And yet, our differences in personality and background and our ability to apply these different strengths to the practical challenges we have faced in honors leadership have also contributed significantly to our reform efforts. I would encour- age other honors programs to consider how deeply the practices of inclusion are embodied by and within their leadership.

Based on my experiences, I believe that an honors program benefits from the presence of administrators and faculty who per- sistently question how well established practices in higher education

serve all students. My own questioning perspective leads me at times to express skepticism when I encounter broad philosophical asser- tions on the value of a liberal arts degree that are not supported by data on diverse student experiences. Certainly the aggregate num- bers reveal that a liberal arts degree adds value annually to one’s earning power and enables access to social mobility, but we often hesitate to weigh the impact of our programs on the 30–35% (or more!) of our students who do not attain a degree within six or more years. Persistent gaps in retention and graduation among under- served students are common across many campuses, and while we know that high-impact practices such as undergraduate research, internships, and other honors programs experiences can narrow gaps in attainment between first-generation students and their peers who are second or third generation, these high-value experiences should be accessed equitably across generational characteristics. Frequent collection and review of relevant data are also crucial for tracking student success and patterns of exclusions in accessing high-value campus experiences.

partiv:challengingassumptions

Toward Diversity-Related Outcomes

In a similar vein, an honors leadership team must be willing to confront deficit-minded assumptions about diversity in higher education that are expressed not only by the broader public but also by faculty and administrators. As a working definition, deficit- mindedness can be understood as on- and off-campus perceptions that undergraduate students of color are at fault for being under- prepared for rigorous educational experiences, a perception that also stigmatizes other diverse student communities such as non- traditional students, English language learners, and students participating in programs designed to expand college access. Such perceptions become a first line of resistance to equity-minded change in educational practices and are often expressed through the following sentiments:

1. a deficit-minded belief that implementing holistic admis- sions means lowering standards;

2. a deficit-minded belief that students of color benefit dispro- portionately from preferential treatment in admissions; 3. a common assumption that success in teaching a diverse stu-

dent population does not require professional development and personal transformation;

4. a belief that the study of human diversity, including U.S. multiculturalism, lacks academic content and rigor; thus, faculty expertise and service work on diversity and equity issues are undervalued compared to more established disci- plinary research and publishing.

I have encountered these forms of resistance often in the con- text of administrative work in and out of honors, and I strongly feel that equity-minded educators need both a language and a will- ingness to speak forthrightly to ensure that these assumptions are challenged. Having presented this list, however, I wish not to be overly categorical; I would like to stress that many educators and institutions recognize the urgency of the moment and are taking action to achieve more equitable outcomes. In my more generous moments, I am able to be patient and to appreciate trends in sup- port of greater inclusion and student success. On other days, I am not so patient. After all, in the context of occupation, impatience can be a virtue, an impetus to make changes that boldly address the climate of inequality faced by underserved students.

Several theoretical and practical responses to deficit-minded- ness may prove beneficial over the shorter and longer term. First, honors leaders must challenge assumptions that holistic admis- sions means lowering standards and benefiting students of color disproportionately. As a proactive administrative response to these assumptions, honors leaders may implement a faculty develop- ment model that emphasizes current research on demographic trends in the school age population, equity in college admissions, standardized testing, and limited access to high-impact programs

among enrolled students. Literature on the limited validity of stan- dardized exams in predicting college success, recent U.S. Supreme Court cases on admissions practices, and studies of the efficacy of diversity-related experiences on campus in strengthening student learning would all be useful in an honors faculty development context. Administrators and faculty whose training may not be in education studies or related fields may not be able to maintain a high level of disciplinary expertise in these vast areas of research, but it is important to allow this literature to contribute to what Ernest Boyer describes as “scholarship of application” where hon- ors practitioners review the literature on inclusive excellence, then ask: “How can [this] knowledge be responsibly applied to conse- quential problems?” (Boyer 21). Rethinking honors in relation to inclusive excellence is just the sort of practical problem that Boyer references.

Second, honors leaders must challenge the assumption that established pedagogy works equally well for all students and that additional professional training is not necessary to work suc- cessfully with diverse student populations. To this end, faculty development models can integrate literature on diverse student engagement in honors, including research on program designs that have demonstrated potential for supporting intercultural lit- eracy. An understanding of such literature can help honors leaders reframe the association of honors with elitism and assert the use- fulness of honors for fully engaging diverse student communities. Students from underserved communities may not initially iden- tify themselves as elite in terms of their academic skills and thus may not recognize how honors can be beneficial: honors leaders must carefully use language to reframe these assumptions for the benefit of a diverse student community. Reading through the lit- erature on diversity in honors provides a theoretical foundation to help answer a practical question we must address collectively: how does (and how can) honors education contribute to the outcome of inclusive excellence? As equity-minded honors practitioners, we can all model ways of engaging with literature on honors student diversity and applying it to program administration and faculty development.

Third, honors leaders must challenge the assumptions that topics of multiculturalism, equity, and diversity lack rigor as aca- demic discourses, which means, therefore, a limited role for these topics is acceptable within high-value programs. Challenging these assumptions successfully will require review and revision of mis- sion statements and programmatic practice to centralize the goal of inclusive excellence in honors. This process will be difficult, and it may require an infusion of expertise from on- and off-campus practitioners in the area of student diversity to institute equity- minded change in honors. If we are earnest, however, in advocating for equity and inclusion across higher education, including in hon- ors, we must evaluate our daily work with the following questions in mind:

• At a rank and file level, among faculty and administrators on any given day on campus, what level of institutional com- mitment, faculty development, administrative support, and strategic coordination is given to the pursuit of equity in stu- dent recruitment, retention, graduation, and engagement in campus life?

• How has our work in honors assisted in these pursuits? • Have our honors faculty and administrators been leaders,

followers, sideliners, or resisters in relation to the pursuit of equity in educational outcomes?

Ultimately, if we are to attain inclusive excellence in honors, language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion also needs a