Honors faculty consider establishing permanent council

Ohio State faculty who teach Honors courses are strongly considering joining forces to form a Universitywide and constitutionally established council to oversee Honors offerings at the University.

Such a body could provide maintenance and oversee delivery of courses and research experiences to undergraduate Honors students, said Dan Farrell, interim associate provost for Honors and Scholars curriculum and chair of the Department of Philosophy. He cited three general areas likely to concern a new council: organizational issues, course offerings and funding.

Under the current structure,"Honors decisions are made in the colleges -- department chairs ask faculty to teach an Honors course, and it's done," Farrell said during a March meeting of Honors faculty -- the first such gathering of its kind."I'm staggered by our success considering how informally this is done."

And the program is successful, he noted. In the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences alone, the number of students enrolled in Honors courses has nearly doubled in a dozen years. He said that in 1985-86, the colleges offered 90 courses in 130 sections to almost 2,400 students. Last academic year, that had grown to 162 courses in 247 sections serving 4,668 students.

Also among the issues such a council could address is the size of the overall Honors program, which some suggest may be larger than it ideally should be. Of the 5,800 freshmen enrolled in autumn 1999, 1,300 qualified for Honors status based generally on an ACT score of 29 or higher and ranking in the top 10 percent of their high school classes.

"That seems a bit large for a special program," Farrell said. He suggested the establishment of a series of solid Scholars programs -- including the Mount Leadership Society piloted this year and three in development to begin next year -- could allow the University to"raise the bar" of the Honors program, perhaps by increasing the minimum ACT score required for admission.

Because of the diversity of programs offering Honors courses, any centralized program likely would focus on admissions policies, graduation requirements, maintaining sufficient funding for the program and consideration of requirements necessary to sustain Honors status rather than detailing curriculum requirements, John Bruno, professor of psychology and chair of the Ad Hoc Honors Faculty Advisory Council, suggested.

Some faculty have expressed preference for maintaining departmental control over establishment of Honors programs to allow for freedom in developing experimental courses."The flexibility has been such an asset in attracting faculty to teach Honors courses," said David Hahm, acting chair of Greek and Latin.

Farrell and the ad hoc advisory council have reconvened since the March meeting of Honors faculty and are continuing to examine the possibilities of forming a permanent council.

The initiative has the support of Martha Garland, vice provost and dean for undergraduate studies. Garland said that not having an established council has been a weakness at the University, but noted that Honors faculty "ought to all be grateful to one another because Honors, as it has grown, has done so because of the voluntary teaching and departmental efforts."

"We need to have a body of folks whose job is governed by the faculty rules," Garland said."It could still be locally based. But an enterprise across campus is quite critical."

She also suggested a similar structure could be put in place as the University expands its Scholars programs."We've seen over time the value the Honors enterprise has had to the University. We'd like to see it extended to a larger group of students."

That concept led to a series of changes about a year ago, when the Honors Center was renamed the University Honors & Scholars Center as part of an administrative expansion designed to embrace the Scholars programs in development. The center is working with other campus departments to recruit and serve non-honors students who are high academic achievers and who come to Ohio State because of a special talent or program offered by the University. Many will be University scholarship recipients and may be students who wish to live in special living-learning programs.

Next year, Scholars programs in the arts, pre-health sciences and the humanities will be launched.

"We need faculty oversight of Honors, and we also need faculty oversight of Scholars programs," Garland said. Farrell has been organizing an advisory faculty group supporting Scholars initiatives.

The era of budget restructuring at the University also concerns some faculty involved in Honors programs.

The proposed budget restructuring process will encourage colleges and departments to provide new programs, create new courses, reduce closed-course problems, collaborate with industry partners, expand federally funded research and undertake other initiatives. Under the process, revenue generated by such activities as offering more classes to students closed out of courses and creating new majors that meet student career plans will be used to provide direct financial support for the programs that create them.

Some Honors faculty have expressed concern that such an incentive-based structure could threaten the maintenance and growth of specialized Honors programs that wouldn't necessarily generate revenues.

Executive Vice President and Provost Edward J. Ray has said that while the allocation of resources under the new budget process would clearly identify and support the University's most treasured academic areas, it will retain flexibility, as well.

The most recently released budget restructuring document acknowledges that support of resource-intensive Honors programs has been a concern throughout the development of budget restructuring.

An Honors Subcommittee chaired by Farrell has recommended that base budgets for colleges engaged in undergraduate teaching be determined, in part, by their Honors activities in consultation with the associate provost for Honors and Scholars curriculum, and also recommended a three-fold increase in the associate provost's funding for Honors course development. Farrell is expected to serve as interim associate provost until July; a search is in progress for the permanent post.

"We agree that incentives based solely on course classification are not advisable and that base budgets should reflect Honors support," the budget restructuring document states."We also recommend that the associate provost for Honors and Scholars curriculum should have sufficient funding to reward and complement college and department program efforts. The effectiveness of these mechanisms will need to be monitored to assess their adequacy."

In response to this story, Ray also said that"the ultimate goal of budget restructuring is to align resources with the goals we set for the University consistent with our shared values. Honors and the new Scholars initiative are activities that are important to us and will be strongly supported under the revised budget process."

This diagram illustrates the scope of the Oval/Mirror Lake/River of Trees restoration project. The River of Trees pedestrian walkway will connect with the Olentangy River.

Oval, Mirror Lake Hollow restoration project to be linked to River of Trees

The rebuilding of the Mirror Lake walls originally scheduled for this summer has been delayed until the summer of 2001 in anticipation of a design project for the restoration of the Oval and Mirror Lake Hollow.

The nationally-known landscape architecture firm of Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates has been hired for these projects, and has been commissioned to design a pedestrian walkway, called the River of Trees, that will connect the Oval and Mirror Lake with the Olentangy River.

The overall project, aimed at reclaiming the historic qualities of the Oval and Mirror Lake Hollow, is in the schematic design phase. If funding becomes available, construction of certain pieces of the project would be scheduled to begin next summer.

"This isn't something that's going to happen tomorrow. It's probably a three- to five-year project," said John Lawter, University landscape architect.

Once a wetland fed by Neil Run and a nearby spring, in 1895 Mirror Lake was dredged and expanded to three times its original size. Islands were constructed and connected by footbridges, while the grassy banks were fortified with rocks. But over time, the lake's elegant shape was simplified, the islands were removed, and the masonry walls built to stabilize the banks began to erode.

The rejuvenated lake will blend past beauty with current technology.

"We're looking at a redesign of the Mirror Lake area, and as part of that, we're exploring the idea of adding a bioengineering design component to help improve the water quality," Lawter said.

Bioengineering components might incorporate plants into the edge of Mirror Lake to help filter water naturally. Another idea being considered, Lawter said, is a system to pump water through filters that collect debris and could be changed periodically like those in a home furnace.

The Oval restoration also will combine history with contemporary needs, with designers taking into consideration the hallowed nature of the treasured space.

"They're talking about significant change, but in subtle ways, so that when you step out onto the Oval you'll feel a positive change, but you won't be able to put a finger on it," Lawter said.

Once drawn up, the plan will call for irrigating the grass, reducing paving, and removing some of the foliage that obstructs views of buildings facing the Oval, he said. said. Landscaping will contrast mature trees already present with new flowering trees and evergreens.

"The most controversial piece being proposed removes the parking lots in front of Orton Hall and the Faculty Club," Lawter said,"but alternate solutions to the parking issues are being proposed."

One possible solution entails creating a new parking lot next to the Main Library and transforming Hagerty Drive from a service drive to more of a street with added parking in back of Hagerty Hall.

Lawter said improving the infrastructure of the Oval with irrigation, drainage, and the proper soil and seed mix is crucial to its future.

"The Oval is our most sacred space," Lawter said."It gets the same use as an athletic field but it doesn't get the same level of attention in terms of turf management and irrigation. The Oval deserves the same level of durability and care that we give our athletic fields."

The Oval renovation also will include new site furniture, walks and building fa�ade lighting that illuminates the face of prominent buildings, said Laura Shinn, campus planner in the Office of the University Architect and Physical Planning.

"One of the things that is really powerful is the fact that the buildings create an edge for the space," Shinn said.

The University also has plans to link its beauty to that of the Olentangy River. The River of Trees will connect Mirror Lake Hollow and the river, and will feature a pedestrian walkway running along the south side of the Larkins fields, with groves of trees and inviting places to sit and congregate within an enhanced landscape. It will capitalize on a bike trail being built by the city of Columbus that is almost complete, which runs along the river from downtown to Interstate 270, Shinn said.

"One of the challenges is, 'How do we get people across Cannon Drive and down to the river?'" she said.

Lawter said construction work on the projects would take place in phases, much like the renovation work at Ohio Stadium, which will allow the University to maintain accessibility to the Oval and Mirror Lake.

While $500,000 in University funds was already in place for the replacement of the walls at Mirror Lake, additional money will need to be raised as the Oval/Mirror Lake Hollow/River of Trees project progresses. John Meyer, assistant vice president in the Office of Development, said a combination of University money and private funds will pay for the project.

"The Office of Development is planning on being involved in making the project happen," Meyer said."Part of the fund-raising will be to establish an endowment for maintenance on the Oval."

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