Dr. Mark Cantrell, an assistant professor of English at Shepherd University, has been selected to be the new director of the honors program at the university.
On Wednesday, Sept. 17, the Picket conducted an interview with Cantrell to discuss what his new position will mean for students interested in graduating with honors, changes he would like to make, and how he ended up in his new job as the director.
The honors program at Shepherd University is only available for application to incoming freshmen, but students who are not a part of the honors program do have an opportunity to receive the same benefits and academic recognition through the scholars program. Cantrell said that he would encourage students who are not enrolled in the honors program to apply for the scholars program. “Honors classes are smaller, and populated with smart, engaged students who desire the pursuit of higher academia,” said Cantrell.
Cantrell said that he believes the experience provided by the honors and scholars programs is “the ideal liberal arts school experience” and that graduating with honors is a great addition to anyone’s resume, especially those who are interested in attending graduate school.
As with the honors program, the scholars program has requirements for membership. Before applying for consideration, students must have completed 24 credit hours at Shepherd or another school and have a current gpa of 3.5 or above. The scholars program accepts about 20 students into the program each year, according to shepherd.edu/honorweb/scholars/. Cantrell said that highlights of being a scholars program student, outside of graduating with honors, include access to honors housing in Martin Hall, 24 hour access to the honors student lounge, which offers a computer lab and printing, and an opportunity to attend extracurricular honors events such as field trips. To graduate with honors from the scholars program students must complete 13 hours worth of honors classes and maintain an overall 3.0 gpa and a 3.0 in said honors classes. Honors scholarships are also available for scholars program students.
As far as changes to the existing honors program, Cantrell said that the theme moving forward would be “expanding horizons”. “Because most honors students in the past have expressed interest in subjects of English, history and the social sciences, these are the areas in which honors classes have traditionally been set,” said Cantrell. “As we are seeing more students interested in areas such as business and biology or chemistry coming into the program, I would like to do anything I can to provide these students with the opportunity to take honors classes and get honors credit for these areas of study,” he said.
“As far as my obtaining of this job goes, I applied for the position, along with several other candidates after the previous honors director, Dr. Brasher, decided she was stepping down,” Said Cantrell. “After an interview process with a faculty committee, I was chosen for the position,” he concluded.
Students who are interested in applying for the scholars program can get more information at http://www.shepherd.edu/honorweb/scholars/ where they will also find a link to the application process.
Leave a Reply