Passport Program

Each spring semester, the Honors College coordinates the Passport Program, an optional offshoot of the required First-Year Experience Program. The goals of the program are to further connect our students to the Lubbock and Texas Tech communities and strengthen their critical reflection skills, as well as to promote more effective communication skills in a non-classroom setting

Students just coming out of their first fall semester in the Honors College choose either an Arts & Academics Track or a Community Service Track and log ten to fifteen hours a month for February, March, and April. At the end of the first two months, they submit a written reflection of their experiences and are then eligible for a sizable award to be applied to the next fall's tuition!

For a list of the activities available to our Arts & Academics Track students, take a look at the blog created by A&A Track Coordinator, Clara Bush.

Honors Associate Dean Selected for National Honors Advisory Board

TTU Honors College Associate Dean, Dr. Marjean Purinton, has been selected from an extremely competitive applicant pool for the National Collegiate Honors Council's Advisory Board. Dr. Purinton's inclusion on the board will benefit the Texas Tech Honors College immensely, both through an increased visibility of our Honors program as well as through collegial connections that she builds between our program and others nation-wide. Additionally, Dr. Purinton's extensive experience in education and Honors will be a great asset to the National Collegiate Honors Council as well.

For more information about NCHC, visit their website at http://www.nchchonors.org/. For more information about Dr. Purinton, see her bio at http://www.depts.ttu.edu/honors/facultystaff/faculty.php.

Spring 2012 Honors Advising Has Begun!

The Honors College has started the Spring 2012 advising cycle and we are excited to have so many diverse offerings this year! Take a look at our available courses by visiting the Spring 2012 course website.

In addition, the Honors advising team created two very important videos this semester in order to help students know what to expect during their advising sessions. Please watch the videos and pay close attention to their serious nature.

FYE Program Highlights Undergraduate Research

Each fall semester, the Honors College First-Year Experience (FYE) Program highlights the various Honors opportunities available to our incoming students. This year, two Honors FYE Mentors, Cade Stull and Joe Herbert, created a short video to highlight one of the most important opportunities available to our students, undergraduate research.

Cade followed and filmed Joe working as a researcher at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Cancer Center through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Program. The video is both informative and entertaining:

Members of the Honors College Book Club Are Published!

The Honors College wants to recognize four members of the Honors Book Club who created an amazing Reading and Discussion Guide for this year’s Summer Reading Program selection, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Congratulations to the authors of the Guide: Sriyutha Reddy, Anastasia Warden, Chidere Akalonu, and Rachel Haney. Download the Reading Guide and and pick up In Defense of Food and other Pollan books at the campus bookstore.

Michael Pollan will be speaking this fall on campus as part of the Presidential Lecture and Performance Series; don't miss his talk on October 28th. You can prepare for the visit by reading In Defense of Food and using the Reading and Discussion Guide as a supplement!

SAB/FYE Game Day Cookout

Come join Student Activities Board and the First Year Experience program for delicious sausage wraps and make-your-own ice cream sundaes before the Texas Tech vs. Texas State game! Then those students that want to call all go over to the football game together! This event will be September 3rd from 12:30pm to 2:30pm outside of Gordon Hall. We will have free t-shirts for the first 160 students, but shirts go fast! For more information contact Lindzi Shanks at lindzi.shanks@ttu.edu.

College Degrees Still Valuable

The local Lubbock newspaper, the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, recently published an interesting news story about the continued economic value of a college degree.  Click here to read the article.