ABSTRACT
Although the goals of honors education have not changed since its inception, its curricular approaches have expanded. This is particularly true of public research universities able to recruit large numbers of talented students. Through diverse curricular approaches, honors colleges develop the skill sets of these students—critical thinking, effective communication, self-awareness and empathy, creativity, and leadership—that are key to engaged citizenry, providing innovation for complex challenges facing society. The opening section of Chapter 2 explores critical attributes of honors curricula, including their underlying philosophical paradigms and the historic tensions between liberal and practical education. The chapter then surveys practical aspects of honors curricula, driven by the scale required. The contributors outline the ways large honors colleges and programs have attempted to solve the problem of scale in the past and propose novel solutions for the future. Here, the curriculum is configured broadly, both inside the seminar room and beyond, evaluating the pedagogical potential of cocurricular engagement as professional development opportunities, including undergraduate research, internships, and field schools for humanists and social scientists. In the final section, the authors focus on how to communicate curricular innovation to audiences, furthering their appreciation of how an honors curriculum contributes to a society’s brighter collective future.
