GW Provost Steven Lerman announced Thursday that the GW honors program will adopt a new “dual-campus” model starting in fall 2012. The change will move freshmen honors courses, first-year honors housing and the honors program office to the Mount Vernon Campus, and will create an interdisciplinary faculty research center, also housed on the campus. Most upper-class honors courses will continue to meet on the Foggy Bottom Campus.
“We have the potential of transforming honors into what I believe will be a national model,” Dr. Lerman wrote in a Sept. 29 letter to honors community members.
First-year students who choose to live in honors housing will live on the Mount Vernon Campus. Mount Vernon’s West Hall is the only GW residence hall that includes its own dining hall. West Hall opened in 2010 and has become highly sought after housing. Ames Hall, which is in the final stages of an extensive renovation, will provide offices and research space for honors faculty.
“It is my hope that a programmatic home that contains faculty and optional MVC honors housing will build an even stronger honors community, and enhanced opportunities for faculty-student engagement,” Dr. Lerman wrote. The provost noted that the challenging and extensive faculty-student engagement called for by the proposal is in keeping with the traditions of Mount Vernon College. Mount Vernon College was founded by Elizabeth Somers in 1875 and affiliated with George Washington University in 1999.
A planned faculty research center, housed in Ames, will host faculty and post-doctoral fellows and a series of research seminars. “I anticipate the center inspiring students and faculty to work together and to engage in the sort of interdisciplinary work that is essential to understanding and addressing the questions and challenges society faces today,” explained Dr. Lerman.
Faculty associated with the center will also offer a seminar for honors students related to their research. According to Professor Maria Frawley, executive director of the University Honors Program, “the seminars offered by faculty engaged in the research center will be an exciting addition to our curriculum, as they will give our students an opportunity not just to benefit from, but to contribute to, important work-in-progress.”
The decision-making process for the dual campus model included discussions with faculty, trustees, students, staff and honors program leadership. Many current honors students expressed concern that the honors townhouse might no longer be a place to study and converse. To ensure that the program maintains a presence on the Foggy Bottom Campus and to serve the needs of upper-level students, the program will retain a vital presence in the honors townhouse on 21st Street.
In announcing the evolution of the honors program to a dual-campus model, Dr. Lerman noted that he and his wife, Lori, who live on the Mount Vernon Campus, are “thrilled at the prospect of welcoming honors to the neighborhood and working more closely with the program in the years ahead.”