Purdue News

Honoring courageous minds

New program to challenge gifted learners

From Perspective
July 2004 edition

"Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

A longtime home to "great spirits" such as Einstein described, Purdue is creating a new haven for particularly gifted learners who courageously use their intelligence at exceptionally high levels. Purdue’s new University Honors Program will welcome its first students in fall 2005.

Chris Oseto

Though honors programs have existed for years at Purdue, they have been school-specific and largely segregated. The new Honors Program, endorsed unanimously by University Senate this year, will draw on the strengths of the existing programs University-wide while providing a new sense of community to high-level learners and an opportunity for holistic learning that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries.

"There is a thread that goes through all disciplines. All knowledge is connected," says Chris Oseto, Honors Program director. "Students in the Honors Program will be challenged in many disciplines."

Oseto, professor of entomology and former adviser for the Golden Key International Honour Society at Purdue as well as the National Science Foundation’s Young Scholars Program, will work with a faculty advisory committee to draw from current honors courses to develop the program. Existing courses will be chosen and new courses designed to challenge and enliven the imaginations of students with exceptional ability and potential. Honors students typically will take two honors courses each semester for their first two years and then focus on their specific academic interests.

"We think the Honors Program is going to be one of the primary ways we can attract the best and brightest students," says Provost Sally Mason. "At least at the outset it will be one of the recruiting tools that we use. I think it’s going to become very popular. Very soon the question will be how many students can we handle."

First-year student applications for the program – from freshmen or transferring sophomores – will be culled by the admissions office and referred to the Honors Program advisory committee for consideration. A variety of qualifications will be factored into the committee’s admission decision including students’ educational backgrounds and experiences, grades, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities and studies, and essays.

The process will be highly competitive, Oseto says.

"I’m not looking at big numbers," he says. "I want this to be very selective and prestigious. In the fall we may admit 20 to 30 students initially. When we get up to full strength we may have a total of 120 or 130, with 60 first-year students and a similar number of second-year students. This is about quality, not quantity."

And the quality will be at the national-scholarship level. Mason says students in the Honors Program will be encouraged and supported in their efforts to win highly respected national awards.

"We have a lot of talented students who ought to be very competitive for some of the most prestigious scholarships – Rhodes, Marshall, Truman scholarships, among others," Mason says. "We’ve never been very systematic in helping them win these awards, and one of the things we will be able to do with the Honors Program is become systematic and facilitative in helping students win national awards."

Another hallmark of Purdue’s Honors Program, as Oseto envisions it, is the support that it will create for students who may not be used to being part of a group of like-minded people. Oseto says he hopes to generate a sense of community that will challenge the students’ intellect, but also nurture them as individuals.

"I want to build a sense of belonging, a community of scholars," Oseto says, recalling a gifted student who once confided that he had never felt accepted until he became part of a program with other gifted students. "He said, ‘This is the first time that I feel part of a group. I really feel like I’ve been accepted.’ That to me was very telling. I want this program to offer that kind of acceptance at the same time it energizes, pushes and challenges these brilliant young people."

Oseto expects faculty to clamor to get involved.

"They will have to compete to be a part of this – and I expect them to," he says. "This is their opportunity to work with the best and the brightest, students who will push the faculty. And we truly have gifted teachers – awards winners – who are excellent instructors whom I would love to tap for this program."

Story by Amy Raley