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Director of the Honors Program
Dept/Division: Academic Affairs
Bucks County Community College seeks an enterprising, intellectually curious, and mentorship-focused scholar to join our vibrant community to lead our honors program to the next level. Building on the College’s strong academic and cultural offerings, collaborating with deans and faculty across the college, and taking advantage of the rich opportunities for intellectual and cultural engagement in our region, the Director will position Honors@Bucks as a community of scholars that not only provides rigorous courses, but also serves as an intellectual hub and home for academically high-achieving students. We seek an individual with the ability to recruit students, foster community among students and faculty, establish and strengthen relationships with honor society leaders in regional high schools and honors directors at partner transfer institutions, connect students to opportunities within and outside of the College, and mentor students to help them make academic decisions, assume challenges, grow intellectually, and transfer to partner institutions where their intellectual abilities and educational aspirations will be met. The Director of Honors@Bucks will impact students’ lives long into the future by helping them develop habits of scholarly disposition, disciplined inquiry, and rigorous discourse as routine ways of engaging with content, approaching challenges and problems, and influencing the world.
The Director of the Honors Program fosters a scholarly community among honors students and faculty members and provides strategic vision, administrative leadership, and day-to-day management of Honors@Bucks—a comprehensive community college honors program. The Director is responsible for building and sustaining a comprehensive program that serves academically high-achieving students through challenging curricula, robust co-curricular programming, and collaborative opportunities across the college. The Director actively recruits students, guides them through their experience at Bucks, and mentors them in determining the next steps of their academic career. The Director develops relationships with appropriate leaders at four-year institutions to foster honors-specific opportunities for transfer and scholarships and participates in appropriate honors organizations at the regional and national levels. This is a twelve-month, full-time administrative appointment reporting to the Vice President for Academic Affairs.
The Honors Program (https://www.bucks.edu/academics/honors/)
Honors@Bucks is for intellectually curious and high-achieving students who desire an academically demanding and enriching experience similar to a liberal arts college or a university honors program. Admission to the program requires a 3.25 or 3.5 GPA depending on the student’s status. To earn an honors associate degree, students complete six honors courses with a minimum 3.0 GPA and maintain an overall cumulative 3.25 GPA.
To meet these requirements, honors students complete designated honors sections of general education courses and honors-by-contract courses. In honors sections, students utilize primary sources, ask probing questions, search for answers to perennial issues that have challenged generations of thinkers, and conduct and present their own research and original works. For courses within the major, students complete a contract with the instructor through which the student will be assigned supplemental work requiring scholarly research, critical analyses, working with primary source materials, and/or submission of original products or research papers.
The education of honors students is further enriched by participation in a robust and supportive community of scholars with additional activities such as seminars devoted to challenging topics, guest speakers, participation in research symposia, trips to cultural and intellectual institutions across the region, and social activities.
Essential Functions
Program Leadership and Management
Develop and facilitate a community of scholars that includes honors students and faculty.
Develop and implement a multi-year strategic plan for the Honors Program aligned with the College’s mission and NCHC recommended characteristics for two-year honors programs and that takes full advantage of PTK offerings.
Track program metrics (enrollment, retention, completion, transfer, GPA) and report outcomes to the VPAA and institutional research.
Propose and manage the Honors Program operating budget, including programming and travel.
Work with the Office of Advancement to keep in touch with honors program alumni and engage them with current honors students and to support the program.
Work with the Office of Advancement to secure and manage external funding through donations, grants, foundation gifts, and corporate partnerships to support program operations and scholarships.
Coordinate scholarship awarding and compliance with the Financial Aid Office; promote scholarship opportunities to prospective and current students.
Work with the Office of Advancement to steward existing gifts, cultivate new donors, and direct monetary awards to eligible recipients.
Supervise and train student workers.
Maintain and strengthen honors-to-honors transfer agreements with four-year partner institutions; negotiate new articulation agreements to expand transfer pathways for honors completers.
Serve as the primary liaison with four-year honors programs and colleges to facilitate seamless student transfer.
Represent the College to professional organizations, including the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), the Northeast Regional Honors Council (NRHC), and Phi Theta Kappa (PTK).
Coordinate transcript coding with the Registrar’s Office.
Curriculum and Programming
In collaboration with the academic deans, develop and maintain honors offerings that includes dedicated honors sections of general education courses and honors-by-contract options for courses in the majors.
In collaboration with the academic deans, identify and orient dedicated honors faculty and assist them in delivering honors sections that meet the criteria of the program, such as requiring scholarly research, critical analyses, working with primary source materials, submission of original products or research papers, and developing a scholarly disposition through asking probing questions and searching for answers to perennial issues that have challenged generations of thinkers.
Facilitate honors-by-contract arrangements between students and faculty; provide templates, guidance, and quality-assurance review
Guide honors students on honors course selection, transfer planning, and scholarship opportunities.
Develop and sustain robust co-curricular programming including honors seminars, guest lectures, attendance at campus and regional cultural events, academic competitions, and field experiences. Take particular advantage of College offerings such as art exhibitions, performances, poetry readings, undergraduate research symposia, and so forth and work to connect students to offerings in Bucks County.
Serve as advisor of the Honors@Bucks student organization.
Collaborate with the advisor of the college chapter of PTK and foster students taking advantage of opportunities offered through PTK.
Build program community through regular communications, campus-event coordination, and alumni engagement.
Student Recruitment, Admissions, and Retention
Collaborate with Marketing and Communications to develop a comprehensive marketing and communications strategy for the Honors Program across multiple channels and platforms, and to maintain current, accurate, and compelling Honors Program webpages.
Collaborate with Enrollment Management to design and execute a comprehensive recruitment strategy targeting prospective honors students from regional high schools, dual enrollment offerings, and the College’s general student population.
Review applicant credentials and admit qualified students to the Honors Program cohort in Workday; maintain and regularly audit the cohort roster for academic standing, progression, and completion.
Collaborate with Enrollment Management to develop and implement retention interventions, including early-alert monitoring, peer mentoring, and co-curricular engagement strategies.
Represent the Honors Program at recruiting events such as Open Houses, admitted-student events, high-school visits, and community engagement activities.
Institutional Participation
Participate in the Academic Pathways Tea
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