With its humble beginnings in 1979, the Honors College at West Chester University has built upon the sure foundations of academic excellence, campus engagement and community building through a fostering of peer relationships.  Through the dedication and vision of the founder and first Director Dr. Walter J. Hipple (1979-1991), the nurturing of the second Director Dr. Elizabeth Larsen (1991-1995) and the embrace of over 100 faculty who have participated in Honors seminars and governance, Honors at West Chester is robust and ever evolving in the service of our students. As we celebrate over 25 years of Honors education, we are so very proud of the over 400 men and women who took the invitation to go beyond the expected.

Boldly embodying the vision of service, fall 1999 saw the inauguration of a new delivery system of Honors education. Students from majors across campus come together for nine cross-disciplinary seminars, designed to be team taught by a diverse array of committed educators. Each course, drawn from the liberal arts, contributes a distinctive component to the overall theme of personal leadership development.   Topics such as ethics in a technological age, educational systems, environmental impact, community and change and the influence of the arts in social movements are explored. Students move through the courses as a learning community, serving as rich resources to peers as they represent their distinctive academic majors.

The curriculum culminates in a community based capstone project where students identify a problem and devote hours of service towards elevating the problem and making their solutions sustainable.  Students write about how the nine courses and their unique academic major impacted their thinking and action. The seminars encourage movement beyond the traditional four-walled classroom and our vision calls us is to continually expand those boundaries.  We afford students hands on opportunities to put intellectual theory into practice

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In addition to studying as a community, Honors students continue living as a community in designated housing in Killinger Hall. Here a video and film editing lab is available for class and community projects. The Honors Student Association holds monthly business meetings and social events in addition to sponsoring a wide range of service projects that involve both Honors students and others in the campus community. Working with elderly, walking for AIDS, serving food in shelters, and mentoring with after school programs are just some of the areas where students are engaged. Students also answer the call for leadership around the campus. Be it student government, writing staff for the Quad, participation in Forensics, Theatre, Musical Groups, or Athletics, leadership in residence life, fraternities and sororities, and a host of departmental clubs and organizations, Honors students are found actively involved campus wide. We continually seek opportunities for technological support of our activities and increase our linking of activities and projects with students across campus. One such initiative partners Honors with the Graduate School and department clubs/organizations in the sponsorship of a Graduate School fair for any student considering application to graduate or professional school. Another outreach is our signature service project “Aid to South Africa”, engaging both the campus and local community in  a day of activities raising awareness of health and poverty issues impacting children  in that country.

An amazing partnership was forged in summer 2001 between WCU Honors and the people of South Africa. Led by a team of educators, including WCU President Madeleine Wing Adler, 27 students from around the State participated in a two week international program that conducted oral histories of current college students and men and women who were on the forefront of change from Apartheid to Democracy. Supported by colleagues at the Universities in the Cape Town and Pretoria regions, local leaders in the Cape Town community and Guguletu Township, students had first hand “behind the tourist line” opportunities to study nation building. Returning in 2004, students conducted a community needs assessment in Guguletu Township, interviewing grandmothers who had primary care of their grandchildren because they lost their own children to HIV-AIDS. These experiences are supported through annual fall seminars on Lessons Learned in Leadership from South Africa.  The return in 2006 provided opportunities for reconnecting with grandmothers and for interviewing orphaned teen heads of households who have care for siblings due to the death of parents from HIV-AIDS.  Data collected from this project was used to justify the purchase of vans to transport Grandparents and children to Health Clinics---a need previously unrecognized by local authorities.  For the latest project, 2008, we were requested by South African community leaders to interview health care providers who were not biologically related to those they served. Our vision has us continuing such opportunities for international service and study in South Africa on a regular cycle, with our next project planned for 2010.

The Bonner Foundation of Princeton has recognized the commitment to excellence and service that are hallmarks of West Chester Honors and, beginning in 2003, has identified students as Bonner Leaders. Linked with AmeriCorps, students with a passion for service are invited to this special program if they will commit to a minimum of 300 hours of leadership training and civic service during a calendar year. Completion of the program earns students a $1,000 service scholarship. Each year we have added to the number of students in this program providing them additional recognition for their passion to serve. 

Being named the Honors College in fall 2006 through an announcement by Provost Linda Lamwers, and receiving word of a move to a permanent location in January 2007, marked additional milestones for celebration.  Originally housed in the faculty office of the founding Director in Main Hall, moving to a converted classroom space in Anderson, and then to a make shift conference room in the former entry way to Green Library,  the Honors College, now has an appropriate home at 703 S. High Street.  The space includes a first floor conference room and kitchen area and second floor discrete office space for the Director, Administrative Assistant, and executive board members of the Honors Student Association.  A back court yard offers promise for suitable future gathering space for reception events.   

Recognizing and valuing the strength of our alumni, in fall 2007 the campus community celebrated 25 years of Honors education.  The event marked the first significant undertaking of its kind and afforded an opportunity for faculty, administration and current students the ability for reconnection  Honor’s pride -- those who have entered a life beyond Main and Anderson, Swope and South Campus, Killinger and Rosedale -- namely, our graduates who are the best ambassadors of Honors we know. This silver anniversary celebration inaugurates opportunities for increased connections between alumni and alumni, alumni and current students, and alumni and the Honors College as a whole.

We have come a long way since 1979, but the imagination in those founding members for what could be is alive, well and with us. I consider myself blessed to be involved with the Honors and students who demonstrate on a daily basis their passion for using their intellectual gifts for the betterment of others. Supporting leaders for tomorrow like these is a sound investment and places us all in good hands. Next step plans in curriculum, housing, student life, international and community partnerships, alumni outreach, service and leadership are only a dream away. We anxiously anticipate rekindling bonds with those who have passed through the “whispering arches” and are confident that the best is indeed yet to be.

Come check us out at the designated alumni e-mail: honors@wcupa.edu, through The Honors College office by mail, 703 S. High Street, West Chester University, West Chester, PA 19383 or by phone 610-436-2996.

All the best,

Kevin W. Dean, Ph.D.
Director of Honors
Professor, Communication Studies