Schedler Honors College Mission

Honors students at graduation

Vision of Honors Education

Honors Education at the University of Central Arkansas seeks to develop public scholars whose values are shaped by inquiry and exploration; whose deliberate actions are grounded in interdisciplinary understanding; and whose skills as leaders empower them to fulfill their potential to guide change within the university, the community, the state, the nation, and the world.

Values

The core values of Honors Education at UCA, underlying everything we do, include:

  • Academic and Personal Excellence
  • Inquiry and Exploration
  • Integrity and Social Responsibility
  • Diversity and Inclusion
  • Interdisciplinary Understanding

Mission of the Schedler Honors College

The Norbert O. Schedler Honors College identifies exceptional students, immerses them in a learning community where they can examine who they are and practice who they want to become, provides them with opportunities for growth and transformation, and develops them as citizen-scholars ready to guide socially responsible change.

Goals

The Norbert O. Schedler Honors College has these goals for student development:

  • Self-authorship–examining and constructing one’s own beliefs, values, and internal commitments, a process that culminates in achieving personal authority;
  • Scholarship–practicing conversation and interdisciplinary inquiry, a process that culminates in academic research, writing, and oral presentation;
  • Citizenship–addressing real-world problems and finding ethical solutions, a process that culminates in reflective civic action; and
  • Leadership–engaging as citizen-scholars exercising informed judgment and an ability to collaborate, a process that culminates in the capacity to guide social change for the common good.

Learning Objectives

Self-Authorship Objectives

  • Self-Authorship: The ability to combine one’s identity, relationships, beliefs, and values into a set of internal commitments upon which to act.
  • Diversity: The ability to analyze familiar cultural assumptions in the context of the world’s diverse values, traditions, and belief systems as well as to analyze the major ideas, techniques, and processes that inform creative works within different cultural and historical contexts.

Scholarship Objectives

  • Critical Inquiry: The ability to analyze new problems and situations to formulate informed opinions and conclusions.
  • Interdisciplinary Learning: The ability to see an issue from an array of perspectives and recognize how alternative approaches influence one another.
  • Integrative Scholarship: The ability to integrate knowledge to express insight and originality through disciplinary or multidisciplinary methodologies.

Citizenship Objectives

  • Ethics: The ability to address real-world problems and find ethical solutions for individuals and society.

Leadership Objectives

  • Collaboration: The ability to develop and present ideas logically and effectively in order to enhance collaboration with diverse individuals and groups.
  • Written and Oral Communication: The ability to develop and present ideas logically and effectively in order to enhance communication with diverse individuals and groups.

Guiding Principles

Inclusion Statement

The Norbert O. Schedler Honors College upholds that diversity fuels the scholarly advancement of knowledge. In order to foster excellence and prepare culturally competent leaders, we seek to create an environment of inclusiveness and respect for the similarities and differences in our community. Through thoughtful conversation about ethnicity, race, socio-economic class, gender, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, age, and ability, we expand our minds and move beyond raising awareness toward creating sustainable social change.

Interdisciplinarity Statement

The Norbert O. Schedler Honors College provides an interdisciplinary forum through which the integration of knowledge allows one to recognize bias, transcend disciplinary borders, and construct meaningful context. Interdisciplinary understanding entails seeing an issue from an array of perspectives and recognizing how alternative approaches influence one another, which leads to a holistic understanding of complex issues.