I wrote the following article as a response to an article in Texas Tech's student newspaper, The Daily Toreador, that claimed that an Honors Education was more of a hassle than a benefit (http://www.dailytoreador.com/opinions/gartner-honors-college-growing-pains-felt-by-students-1.2231861).
While flipping through the April 20th issue of the Daily Toreador, an opinion article concerning the Honors College caught my eye. Being a student and employee of the Honors College, as a mentor to students new to the program, I felt that the piece was a complete misrepresentation of the program. I realize that Ms. Colleen Gartner is stating her opinion and I respect it, but I would like to throw my opinion into the ring as well.
The Honors College offers many opportunities for its students including small, discussion-based classes that allow us to form personal relationships with top-notch professors, and we also receive the opportunity to register before other students on campus. The Honors College of Texas Tech is one of the few Honors programs in the nation that has a dedicated faculty hired and paid by the Honors College itself, while also being one of two Honors programs in the nation that awards its own degrees (Honors Arts and Letters and Natural History and Humanities, which is also offered as a minor).
Ms. Gartner also contends that there is a lack of faculty who are willing to teach Honors courses, but that is not the case. Many professors simply may not have the time because the number of classes has been reduced and they are being forced to teach larger classes, or to focus on publishing and research expectations that placed upon many faculty members in certain colleges.
Because of these expectations, many colleges have very few major-specific courses offered through the Honors College, but there are core classes for every major and the possibility of contracting a class to meet major requirements. In order to contract a class, you must have the permission of your professor and sign a contract that requires you to complete all course assignments and a paper or project on top of the regular coursework.
There are still cases in which extra classes are required in order to fill the 24-hour requirement that it takes to be an Honors College graduate. The faculty, though, encourages students to take a class or two outside of their major in order to “broaden their horizons” and foster an appreciation for an array of subjects offered at Texas Tech. Last semester, I took a class called Performance: Analysis & Criticism. Though it did nothing at all for my major requirements, it was my favorite course of the semester. Whitney Neal, a senior Architecture major from Brady, TX, said, “I have to take about 20 to 24 hours of extra classes in addition to Architecture, but I like that the classes are challenging and smaller and I get to learn from faculty that are experts in their field.”
Perhaps my biggest problem with the article was its portrayal of Honors students as not being “normal.” At one point, Ms. Gartner goes as far as saying, “There are quite a few gifted students around Tech. Some of them hide within the masses in an effort to be normal…” Living in the Honors Learning Community in Gordon Hall, I have heard several reactions to this statement, most of them angry. Students don’t take kindly to being called different.
The main difference between the students who inhabit the Honors College and Ms. Gartner herself, is that we expected the work that came with the title, and the opportunities that allow us to venture beyond our majors and enjoy the experiences. In the end, we leave Texas Tech with a more rounded education than most students and employers look for that when hiring. Because of this, I think that we are able to better appreciate artists, doctors and engineers and the work that they do.
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