Canisius College - General Information

Fr. Vincent Blehl

Dr. George Lavere

Dr. Leslie Warren

Fr. Anthony Brzoska, S.J.

Dr. James Lauffenberger

Dr. Keith Burich

Dr. Robert Butler

Food for Thought
Director's Message
Mission
History
Administration
Honors Constitution (MS Word)
Awards

Food for Thought
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
"Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice."

- Aristotle

"The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."
"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America."

- Alexis de Tocqueville

"We are always getting ready to live but never living."
"The reward of a thing well done is to have done it."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined."

- Henry David Thoreau

Director's Message
Thank you for visiting the website of the All-College Honors Program at Canisius College. For nearly a half century, Honors has provided academically superior, highly motivated undergraduate students with an accelerated and enhanced intellectual experience that helps them become independent critical thinkers who will be prepared to lead successful careers and fulfilling personal lives. Joining Honors can be the first step in a life-changing experience.

Although the academic component is the heart of the program, it is not the only reason to be in the Honors Program. Honors students have access to special living accommodations on campus, unique field trips/outings, research grants and internships, many social events, and individualized mentoring/advising for prestigious scholarships. Plans for the coming year include a retreat at the Chautauqua Institution, theatrical performances at the Shakespeare and Shaw Festivals in Ontario, Canada, a book club and film series, monthly luncheons with faculty and area personalities, an ice cream social, a Jeopardy contest, a Christmas party, the annual Honors banquet at an area restaurant, snow tubing, a talent show, a trip to Toronto, and so on. Almost all events are completely free to Honors students.

The All-College Honors Program at Canisius College is not for every student. For the most part, it is for those students who have excelled in high school (top 10 percent of high school rank or 94 high school average or 3.8 grade point average or 1300 SAT or 700 verbal and/or 28 ACT) and who choose to come into the program. On occasion, Honors welcomes students with unusual talents and experiences whose scores may be somewhat lower than these benchmarks.

Let me know if I can be of any assistance in your decision to be a part of the Canisius All-College Honors Program. If you are going to be on campus, ask the Admissions Office to arrange time to visit the Honors Program or call us directly. I look forward to meeting you and working with you to make your academic goals come true.

Best wishes for a great college experience,
Bruce Dierenfield, PhD (CT 607)
Professor of History & Honors Director
dierenfb@canisius.edu
888-2683 or 888-2690

Mission
The All-College Honors Program at Canisius College aims to challenge highly qualified, highly motivated students to develop intellectual curiosity and rigor, independent reasoning and creativity, superior communication skills, leadership potential, and a system for ethical decision-making. Besides challenging coursework with select faculty, the Honors Program provides its students with Honors housing (for a fee), service opportunities, and extraordinary co-curricular activities, adding significant dimensions to their academic program. The result is a close-knit scholarly community within the college that prepares its students for productive careers and rewarding lives. Consistent with this mission, we continually seek students who strive for excellence, who embrace intellectual life with energy and a sense of adventure, and who desire to pursue their academic work in diverse venues, communities, and contexts.

History
The origins of the All-College Honors Program at Canisius College date to 1958. Its principal purpose was to make the campus “book-centered,” a prospect that the college administration regarded as “thrilling.” At that time, Fr. William Scott, SJ, dean of the faculty, proposed offering an interdisciplinary, sophomore honors seminar on the “Image of Man” in Western Culture, beginning with the Greeks. [The college was all-male at that time.]


	Father William Scott, S.J.

The Honors Program began formally two years later, when Fr. Scott appointed Fr. Vincent Blehl, SJ, of the English department and Dr. George Lavere of the Philosophy department as its first co-chairs. When Fr. Blehl left the college within the year, he was replaced by Dr. Leslie Warren of the English department.

The first honors class was held in 1960 and consisted of 19 students, six in the arts, five in social science, three in business administration, three in chemistry, and two in mathematics. They had met the minimum requirements of a 3.0 GPA and a healthy appetite for “a strenuous program of collateral reading and independent thinking.” Students who successfully completed the sophomore honors seminar were formally admitted to the program, which added junior and senior seminars in the following years. These honors seminars were supplemented by special courses offered by individual departments.

As an inducement to join the fledgling program, honors students were exempt in their regular coursework from attendance requirements, term papers, and final exams. To pay for additional books, the college established an Honors Program library, which purchased the required readings. Honors students developed a sense of camaraderie as they studied and gathered socially in the second floor of a home at 27 Eastwood Avenue, which was decorated for the Honors Program. The “Honors Quarters” were not to be used as a lounge, and eating and drinking were not permitted; the dean fixed a 10 p.m. curfew on the use of the honors house.

By the mid-1980s, the Honors Program had reached a crossroads. It was at this critical juncture that Dr. Robert Butler of the English department became the Honors director and led the program to its greatest heights. He implemented a new curriculum approved by the Faculty Senate, raised academic standards, increased the program to 250 students, recruited a talented teaching corps to present unusual courses, and pursued outside funding to underwrite an impressive variety of co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. All the while, the inimitable Dr. Butler, a diehard Boston Red Sox fan and biking enthusiast, exemplified the life of the teacher-scholar. Before he left the directorship in 2006, after 21 years of exemplary service, he published several books on African American literature and received the Kenneth L. Koessler Distinguished Faculty Award.

Previous Administrators

Constitution of the Honors Program
March 2001

I. Objectives of the All-College Honors Program
Whereas the objectives of the Honors Program at Canisius College correspond to the objectives of education in general, and to Canisius College education in particular, the College Honors Program seeks to develop to the point of excellence a full range of human qualities, including, but not limited to those honorable qualities essential to the intellectual, moral, and social dimensions of life. This includes the development of the skills of critical thinking and effective expression, and a comprehensive understanding of human values. The one objective of the Honors Program that distinguishes it from the College Core Curriculum is that the Honors Program is designed to be one means to recognize and to fulfill the needs of those students who, through past performance, have demonstrated the promise of superior academic achievement and to whom a sustained and high degree of academic challenge in the liberal arts and sciences is essential.

II. Administrative Structure
The administrative instrument for the All-College Honors Program will consist of two parts: The All-College Honors Committee and the Director of the Honors Program.
A. All-College Honors Committee
i. There will be established, on a permanent basis, an All-College Honors Committee.

The committee will consist of eight members, as listed below. The Director of the Honors Program will submit a slate of members to the Senate for its approval every two years, during the spring semester, so that the committee may begin its work in the fall. The members will include:

The Director of the All-College Honors Program
The Chair of the Core Curriculum Committee or his/her designate
Five members of the college faculty, including at least one from the College of Arts ad Sciences, one from the School of Education, and one from the School of Business, with no two from the same academic department
One student in the Honors Program elected by the Honors students.

ii. Responsibilities of the Honors Committee:
The Honors Committee will, in co-operation with the Director:

Act to review and adopt course proposals for the College Honors Program.
Promote contact and communication between faculty and students.
Within bounds set by this document, rule on other aspects of the program germane to its vitality (e.g., student prerequisites, etc.).
Report to the Faculty Senate at least once each year.
Within the general guidelines of the Core Curriculum, have the flexibility to make appropriate alterations in the Honors curriculum which will strengthen the program and/or enhance the education of individual students.

B. Director of the Honors Program
The Director of the College Honors Program will be a faculty member selected by the Academic Vice President. The Director will report to the Dean of Arts and Sciences.

Responsibilities of Director:

Selection and recruitment of College Honors students, including the recruitment of new freshman students to the All-College Honors Program, in conjunction with the Dean’s Office and the Office of Admissions.
Reception, evaluation, and judgment of student petitions to enter the program.
Establishment of a process for admission of qualified students (e.g., grade point average) to the program after initial recruitment.
Liaison between participating departments (through the appropriate Chairs), the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, and the Faculty Senate.
Scheduling of the courses to be taught in the Honors curriculum for each semester.
Coordination of the staffing of Honors courses (in cooperation with the Dean of Arts and Sciences and Department Chairs) including the active recruitment of faculty members to serve the program.
With the advice of the Honors Committee, overseeing and administering of the Honors curriculum.
Promotion of cultural and other extra-curricular activities for Honors students.
Promotion of extra-curricular contact between faculty and students (“mentoring”).
Facilitation of communication among faculty participating in the Honors Program.
Solicitation of grant money to enhance the Honors Program.
Administration of surveys of what those in the Program think of the Program and why some students drop out (exit interviews, student evaluation of Program).

III. Recruitment and Retention

A. There are two main concerns that come under recruitment of students into the Honors Program. The first is designation of students to participate in the program; the second is retention of those students in the program.

B. The Honors Program should try to expand its pool of prospective students by encouraging freshmen and transfer students who have demonstrated academic excellence to petition to enter the Honors Program. The Program should also attract good students to Canisius through the more aggressive recruitment of prospective Honors students to the college. The possibility of using Honors students themselves in the recruitment process should be investigated.

C. Some factors that might be considered in making the program attractive to good students include offering the Honors students additional “orientation” that would include computer workshops, social events that would introduce all the freshman participants to each other, other events of academic interest that would introduce all four classes to each other, big brother-sister contacts, introduction to the facilities of the library.

D. Another possibility that should be developed is a mentoring system. For the Honors Program it might be feasible to request volunteer faculty to be responsible for contacting a small group of Honors students once or twice a semester to listen to them perhaps over lunch or a cup of coffee. The mentoring system might overlap the freshman advising system now in place or be separate from it.

E. To enhance the recruitment and retention of Honors students from the field of science and mathematics, special efforts should be made to involve science and mathematics faculty in Honors through participation in a mentoring program and/or teaching in the Honors Program.

F. Retention of good students in the program can be encouraged by attending to several suggestions the students themselves have made which could make the program more attractive to them. These suggestions include increased flexibility in course scheduling, more choice in courses offered, designating space for an Honors library.

IV. Review
According to the Resolution of the Faculty Senate (1983-84), the Honors Program will be reviewed every five years by an Honors Review Committee under the auspices of the Educational Policy Committee of the Faculty Senate.

Administration
To administer the All-College Honors Program, the college provides a budget and designates a director who is responsible to the Faculty Senate and the vice president for Academic Affairs. The Honors director works closely with the Honors Committee to establish and review procedures for the Honors Program. In addition, the Honors director convenes an Honors Student Council composed of students who plan and promote the program’s social and co-curricular activities.

The Honors Committee is an advisory group of faculty and one Honors student who advise the program director on curricular and other matters. It meets at least twice a year. Members for 2009-2010 are:

Emily Caruana
Student Assistant