Executive Summary

Recommendations

1. Millersville University has an Honors Program that is positioned to move successfully to an Honors College. The joint efforts of faculty, students and administration should focus on malting this transition while the several supporting conditions are still available.
2. Honors College staff should be appropriate to its role within the university.

   2.1. The director should be assigned about 75%-time to manage Honors and 25%-time teaching. The director clearly should have the support of both the faculty and the administration.

   2.2. The Honors College needs a full-time secretary. The need for Honors to communicate campus-wide-something not required of departments, providing information responding to, "Which Honors College students are in my department?" and organizing the records of student exit interviews and portfolios are compelling arguments.

   2.3. Because, while teaching or attending meetings, the director will be unavailable to students and faculty, there should be an assistant or associate director assigned about half-time to Honors.

3. The administration mast assure departments and colleges that no participating units will be penalized for offering small-enrollment courses in support of Honors. This understanding represents the institutional commitment to the university's Honors College.
4. The Self-Study, which Millersville University is undertaking in preparation for the Middle States Accreditation, should specifically include the Honors Program prominently with the following considerations.

   4.1. The university should specifically request that one of the members of the visiting team be specifically qualified and charged to review the Honors Program in addition to other areas. (Unless the university administration takes this initiative; your program is likely to be overlooked or reviewed by someone unfamiliar with Honors.)

   4.2. The Self-Study should include the university's plans for the Honors College and any progress already made toward that goal.

   4.3. Several aspects of the Honors College design should link directly to student and institutional outcomes, possibly including .portfolios, theses, presentations, and selfassessments.

   4.4. The recommendations in recently completed Noel-Levitz report on enrollment management can be linked directly to the benefits to the university that the Honors College can offer. These links could be made explicit [Examples of student wants: 24hour study place, research endowment to pay $500/semester, new "Cumberland", access to prestige scholarships. Student benefits: honors thesis, culture and field trips-very high value, independence and questioning, and communicating.]

5. The Honors College should capitalize on the current opportunity to move into a more spacious location suitable to its new status. Although the current enrollment of approximately 300 students is quite satisfactory, new facilities could accommodate a larger group if the college determined that this desirable. I would suggest that MU could justify an enrollment of anywhere between 300 and 500, limited primarily by resources.
6. There are opportunities for outreach and recruitment that can be taken.

   6.1. The Millersville University Honors Program should be an institutional member of the National Collegiate Honors Council and, consequently, become listed in the new Peterson's Guide to Honors Programs in American Colleges and Universities, 2nd edition.

   6.2. The Honors web page should be significantly updated and made much easier to find. Many students screen universities and Honors by perusing web sites.

    

7. The Honors College can, and should work closely with the university development office.

   7.1. The kind of student Millersville University and the Honors College wish to recruit are competitively sought by other institutions. The university will have to commit scholarship resources to attract these students, especially if diversity is valued.

   7.2. Having an Honors College make fund raising easier for the university. Honors College students become significantly alumni donors.

The consultant, at the exit interview, recommended the following statement be distributed by the administration:

The administration is pleased to support the Honors College proposal initiated by the Honors College Committee of the Faculty Senate on behalf of the faculty and reviewed by the consultant. We encourage the support of the entire university faculty and students.