The University Honors Committee met on Thursday, February 18. The first topic of discussion was the upcoming Teaching and Learning Symposium, where the Committee was planning to present some findings from the recent Honors Assessment project. Unfortunately, this plan fell through, and the Committee is now looking for other venues to communicate the Assessment data and its implications to a larger audience.
The Committee also discussed the upcoming allocation of monies from the Regent Scholars Fund, which is a resource for projects benefiting high-achieving students on campus. The size of the Fund is directly related to the number of National Merit and All-State Scholars who enroll at the University each year. For this reason, the significant downward trend in the size of the Fund over the past few years is rather troubling, because it suggests that the University is having a difficult time recruiting top students. Some Committee members postulated that this might be a result of the lucrative packages offered to top students by other universities.
The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the future of the Undergraduate Research Symposium. Planners would like to see the Symposium continue to build on its multidisciplinary character and perhaps eventually become a multi-day event. They are currently seeking ways to encourage greater representation of the humanities, visual and performing arts, and service-learning projects. Past student participants have also expressed disappointment at the size of the audience, so I would encourage you all to go check it out if you get the chance! The Symposium will be held April 15, and you can learn more at http://www.learning.wisc.edu/ugsymposium/
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