NU offers students new challenge

Norwich has added an honors program into the curriculum, as a way to further challenge students, according to an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry.

"The honors program was designed for students with high levels of intellectual abilities to help them personalize their education here at Norwich University," said assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry Natalia Blank.

Prospective applicants to Norwich need a 3.5 grade point average in high school to be invited into the program, according to Blank.

"Once the students who apply to Norwich University are identified as potential honor students, they are invited to apply to the program. They submit their application package, which consists of a resume, letters of recommendation, and a short essay," said Blank. "The honors council, which is comprised of 10 Norwich University faculty and staff, then looks at those applications and makes a decision to accept 25 students."

Students may still be able to be invited in the program after they arrive on campus, according to Blank.

"We do know that some students who apply have a low grade point average coming out of high school and for students like that we have a second wave of applications," said Blank. "The second wave looks at the freshmen after their first and second semester, specifically, those students with a 3.2 grade point average."

 "This is the first year of the program," said professor of history Steven Sodergren. "The honors program is designed to allow outstanding Norwich University students to really take their academic career here to a higher level."

Honor students will be challenged with specialized work, according to Sodergren.

"The program consists of specialized courses, specialized research projects, and specialized participation events what we call seminars that will allow students to really tailor their education to pursue more individual-type academic activities," he said.

The program was created to give students additional educational opportunities.

"The program was created to give outstanding Norwich University students the ability to do more specialized work here," said Sodergren. "The idea being that Norwich University students sometimes get frustrated with regimented curriculum maps or perhaps limited academic opportunities. We want to give those students who might best take advantage of additional opportunities, the ability to do so."

The first year of the honors program puts freshmen in a seminar where they learn a broad topic applies to all academic disciplines, said Sodergren.

"The honors program as it is currently structured consists of freshmen that enter in the program and immediately take a course called HNR 101, Honors Seminar," he said. "It is a course filled with other honors students that allow them to really work with other outstanding Norwich University students in a more intimate environment."

He explained, "The course itself is designed to be an interdisciplinary subject, so it does not matter if you are an architecture, history, criminal justice, math or science major; everybody stands to benefit from this."

After freshman year, students can specialize their studies towards topics they want to study in depth, according to Sodergren.

"As a sophomore, students would take what we call a contract course where a student would take one of the courses they are normally required to take for their degree and work individually with the professor to do added work on top of that course," said Sodergren. "For instance, I teach a 200 level course on military history. An honors student in that course would come to me and say, ‘This a subject that I would like to work with you on can I pursue an additional research project on the Napoleonic way of war?' or an art student might go to one of their professors and say ‘I would like to explore the use of water colors in this particular field of painting.'"

Sodergren said this study "may or may not relate to their big project but it would allow them to sort of pursue something in a normal course that might not otherwise be covered."

The extra work will vary among disciplines.

"It depends on what the student and professor agree on" said Sodergren. "For history it might be a paper, it could be some sort of museum display or it could be any kind of project that might facilitate the study of history, and obviously for the math and sciences it might be a more physical element."

Honors students will have a final project approved in their junior year.

"... students will be able to tailor research and then compose a research project in their particular field of study," Sodergren said. "So a history major might compose a project dealing with a particular subject of history they are interested in, a math major might work on a particular set of formulas they would like to pursue, a science student might perform lab experiments and things like that but the students would have tremendous amount of control over what that project is and how they plan to design it."

"Senior year students are researching and constructing their project," he said. "At the end of their senior year they would present it in a public forum with the intention of submitting it for review by the campus community using what they have learned to enhance the learning of other students on campus like those who necessarily are not in the honors program and as a result hopefully create something that would really stick with them, something that they could look back on and go ‘That really is emblematic of what I accomplished at Norwich University.'"

Students might be able to present their research in front of national conferences, he said.

There will be 25 students per class year with a total of 100 students in the program.

Special recognition for the students involved is still under discussion, according to Sodergren.

"A lot of it is the idea that the program itself will give them that sense of accomplishment, something that they can carry with them, but we are working on giving them some enhanced recognition. We are hoping to get designation on their diploma that they are graduating as a member of the honors program," he said.

"To a certain extent this is experimental, we are working on ironing this out," said Sodergren. "Actually, this first class of honors students will help us design this program, tell us what's working and what is not, so if any changes need to be made we can do it now before the whole thing is up and running."

Creating an honors program was a university-wide effort, according to Sodergren.

"I am happy to be part of the program, this is a chance for Norwich students to really make a mark on the Norwich University campus and on their chosen profession," Sodergren said.