Scholars of honors education and higher education report that positive faculty-student interaction is associated with successful academic performance. Accordingly, the Honors Program at JCCC expects each honors student to enjoy regular interactions with a member of the JCCC faculty.
Faculty becoming a role model to an honors student and accepting to visit at least once every semester to discuss available resources, academic pathways, transfer opportunities, career options, or research opportunities for instance, are hitherto called honors mentors. Honors mentors are first and foremost cheer-leaders, bolstering honors students’ confidence when it may falter.
The relationship between the honors student and their mentor will develop organically out of a course or honors contract. In some instances, the honors student may seek out a faculty member more purposefully, if the happenstance meeting did not take place.
The Honors Program is devoted to fostering these relationships. To this end, we are making a number of tools available to students and faculty to ease conversations and suggest constructive direction for the interaction. In our toolkit, you will find conversation starters, pre-interview questions for students to prepare their first conversation, recommendations for drafting their first email, tips for how to address their faculty mentor, what to wear and generally how to maintain a professional demeanor.
To further ensure sustained investment in the honors student / mentor interaction, the Honors Program strongly encourages faculty teaching honors courses to adopt one of the suggested reflection prompts as one of their course-assignments. While the Honors Program director will not expect to see students’ reflections, our hope is that faculty will share with the leadership of the Honors Program reports of failing relationships, so that alternative mentors may be identified.