Rethinking Honors Curriculum in Light of the AP/IB /Dual Enrollment Challenge: Innovation and Curricular Flexibility

Department

Teaching, Learning, and Educational Leadership

Department Name When Scholarship Produced

Curriculum and Instruction

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2016

Abstract

Annmarie Guzy’s lead article for this volume speaks of a familiar challenge in the Eastern Kentucky University Honors Program. The nearly universal and dramatic increase in the number of AP, IB, and/or Dual Enrollment credit hours among our incoming first-year honors students over the past two decades served as the primary impetus for a major curricular overhaul within our program in 2013. The result—what we call our new (post-2013) “Honors Flex” curriculum—was initially a source of considerable anxiety among many of our faculty as well as some of our students and alumni. In retrospect, however, we are able to see that our willingness to enact fundamental change at the heart of our honors program has opened up new creative possibilities for our students, faculty, and university community. While AP/IB/Dual Enrollment credit did, in fact, contribute to what Guzy terms a perceived “admissions crisis,” we have found that our response to the challenge provided an important opportunity to rethink and reimagine the nature of honors education on our campus.

Journal Title

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council

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