Date of Graduation

8-2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

Agricultural Education, Communications and Technology

Advisor/Mentor

Rom, Curt R.

Committee Member/Reader

Edgar, Don

Committee Member/Second Reader

Shoulders, Catherine

Committee Member/Third Reader

Johnson, Donald M.

Abstract

In order to continue to feed and clothe nearly 9 billion people by the year 2050, there is a definite need for innovative agriculturalists to contribute to the field of agricultural research. Land-grant and public universities, established over 100 years ago with a devotion to agricultural research, have begun to develop “honors programs” in order to attract the best and brightest students away from private universities and to their campuses. This study sought to discover how common agricultural honors programs were and what characteristics they shared via a survey administered over the internet and distributed to a database of contacts assembled from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities member list. These characteristics were derived from standards published by the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC). The results showed that having a cross-college honors program and a separate agriculture college honors program was not a common occurrence. Entrance requirements, student learning and community opportunities, and research project requirements were all common factors among the responding institutions. Generally, the responding institutions followed the best practice guidelines outlined by the NCHC.

Keywords

honors programs; public universities; agriculture; poverty

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