Arriving at Odessa College two years ago, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Education Pervis Evans was asked to move forward on an Honors College.
Planning began, but the pandemic hit and priorities shifted. It is now expected to launch in the fall.
Evans said they don’t know how many students will be in the Honors College, but they are planning for 150 for the first year.
There is an online application process.
“The criteria is that they would need to meet one of the requirements, either have earned a 3.5 or higher GPA for their high school experience; or 3.5 (average) GPA for college courses with at least six credit hours,” Evans said.
Part of the application form includes a chance for students to provide an essay and it also includes two letters of recommendation and their transcript.
“Once they’re admitted into the Honors College, they would be required to participate in designated honors courses; up to four designated honors courses, if they’re considered an honors fellow, and up to two, if they’re considered an honors scholar,” Evans said.
“They would also need to participate in service learning, community service projects and specific honors college activities that we’d offer throughout the academic year,” he added. “The rewards of it would be that they would not only have that opportunity for enriched learning, not only would they have additional support with scholarships moving forward past Odessa and the college and the admissions process of getting into their chosen transfer university and possibly even into the honors program at at transfer partner universities.”
If they were an honors fellow they would also be given the opportunity to apply for a transfer or career scholarship after they left Odessa College.
“If they stayed with us and graduated with their associate degree with us, they would also receive that honors distinction at graduation and on their transcript. The designated honors courses on their transcript would be distinctly listed as honors courses, as well,” Evans said.
They would like Honors College candidates to pursue an associate or four-year degree.
“… Typically, those who are in honors colleges, or honors programs at community colleges plan to transfer to a university. We want to also open up this opportunity for those who are on a technical workforce path, as well, if they’re going for that AAS degree. So their project may be a little different,” Evans said.
The service learning projects and research may be different than one who is going to pursue a bachelor’s degree at a university, or the bachelor’s degrees at OC.
However, the rigor would be the same and there would be an opportunity for experiential learning, he said. The college would want students to take advantage of opportunities that would help develop their leadership skills, communication skills, critical thinking, help them research and analyze information and be able to articulate their thoughts and ideas.
“Leadership will be a huge component, because we want to prepare them for whatever is next to be the leaders of the future; the leaders of today. So as many opportunities that we can give them to perfect those skills, or to be driven in that direction, we want to provide it,” Evans said.
He added that the program is open to dual credit students.
“We have our two early college high school programs on campus, so we are of course opening it up to them. But almost 40% of the students at OC are dual credit students and we want to provide that opportunity to those who are juniors and seniors in high school who’d like to take part, as well,” Evans said.
Dual credit students could also take designated honors courses while they are still in high school.
Evans said they hope the Honors College program will help attract more students.
“A lot of times high achieving, motivated students who may have plans to enter some of the top-tier universities of their choice, life may have happened, and that prevented them from going in that direction. We don’t want them to stop. We want them to know that OC can be a choice school for them, as well, where they can find the same rigor and opportunity to move forward in their pursuit of higher education. We also hope to help prepare them for those transfer opportunities to top-tier universities,” he added.
There are other colleges that have honors colleges.
“The National Collegiate Honors Council is one national group that we plan to be a part of. It’s a network of various honors programs across the country. There’s also Texas consortiums and groups that we’re aligning with as well to bounce ideas off of each other, to support one another, and especially to build those university connections so that students can have a good foundation here and then transition to the honors programs that are offered at universities,” he said.
University of Texas Permian Basin and Texas Tech University are two examples regionally that have thriving honors programs, Evans added.
“We’ve already been in discussion with them about partnerships,” he said.
OC has partnerships with universities helping students to seamlessly transfer.
“But if they desire to continue in those honors programs at the schools, we want to make sure that they’re well prepared to get into those programs successfully,” Evans said.
He noted that OC chose to make their designated honors courses ones that come from our transfer core curriculum so that any one of those honors courses will transfer to any Texas public university without question.
