Honors College changes in progress
February 13, 2013
Filed under Archives
The Jesup Scott Honors College is the new name of the University of Toledo’s Honors program, the first of several planned changes.
Main Campus Provost Scott Scarborough said the new honors college was developed last semester after holding focus groups with students who chose not to attend UT.
“We kept coming back with a revised decision of an advanced honors college till we got a description where most of them said, ‘If you had this program, I would have reconsidered,'” he said.
The college’s new name comes from the man who helped found UT. Jesup W. Scott donated 160 acres of land to start the university in the 1870s, which became what students know now as Scott Park Campus.
Other changes include:
- The Honors College is moving into parts of MacKinnon Hall this summer. Students in next fall’s honors program will have the opportunity to live in MacKinnon after it is renovated.
“This summer, we are going to give it fresh paint and carpet and convert it from double room to single room and make it available as a second honors college housing,” Scarborough said.
Honors students will have a choice between MacKinnon and Academic House, although they can also choose to live in other residence halls.
He said plans also include moving the honors college offices from their current location in Sullivan hall over to MacKinnon.
- Honors students will have expanded housing options in Fall 2014. Scarborough said Dowd, Nash and White residence halls, which have been vacant all year, will undergo major reconstruction and be completely updated.
He said the university will do this by hiring outside investors to lease the buildings and renovate them, after which the developer will lease rooms to students.
Scarborough said this will be a way for UT to avoid placing “limited capital dollars at risk.”
“They put their money at risk, they get to charge rates, and if the income they take from students is more than what they have to pay out to run the student housing project, they get the money,” he said.
Scarborough said UT is presently courting about 10 different student-housing developers around the country, who will submit a proposal and then UT will pick its favorite. He said UT will avoid plans that “require us to put any money down or have any financial responsibility.”
- Honors students will receive preferred admissions to advanced degree programs. Scarborough said for every advanced degree program, including pharmacy, medical and graduate degree programs, undergraduate honors students will have an easier time getting accepted. He said this includes reserving a limited number of spots for honors students.
“We’ll work with all the deans of each college, and they will develop a preferred admissions path,” he said.
