The Fort Hays Honor Society has announced two honors courses beginning spring of 2015 – PHIL 120: Introduction to Philosophy and MATH 110: Honors College Algebra.
PHIL 120: Introduction to Philosophy-Aims of Education, will be taught by Douglas Drabkin, chair of the department of philosophy. The course is an introduction to returning questions concerning topics such as knowledge, doubt, God, freedom, necessity, good and evil, immortality, time, the cosmos, and the meaning of life, and some of the most noteworthy attempts to answer them.
“We will explore fundamental questions concerning education and its goals – questions that focus on the meaning of life,” Drabkin said. “We will do this in a way that makes sense of and integrates the full scope of the arts and sciences.”
MATH 110: Honors College Algebra will be taught by Lanee Young, associate professor of math and computer sciences and Judy Brummer, instructor of math and computer sciences. The course will focus on a conceptual understanding. Additional projects and activities will be included to apply the concepts to the real world.
“Dr. Young and I thought it would be interesting and fun to collaborate on this course,” Brummer said. “We wanted to provide a challenging and meaningful opportunity for students who wish to explore the concepts of algebra at a more advanced level. We want the students to be actively engaged in learning by providing projects and activities to extend their understanding of algebraic processes.”
“The honors course initiative has always been a long term goal of FHHS, since it was founded in 2008,” said Michelle Klepper, FHHS president. “FHHS is made up of the top 2 percent of FHSU students. Our adviser, Matt Means,(assistant professor of music), is a firm believer in offering more for these students. We believe that this honors course is a step in the right direction to attract and retain students that are more ‘academically inclined.’”
The honors course development committee met throughout the summer developing the best process for the first honors course. Applications from FHSU faculty were collected until mid- September and the top two syllabi were chosen.
“This has been a very involved process, long in the sense that it has always been one of the major goals of FHHS, but short in the time frame it was actually put together,” Klepper said. When the honors course development committee first met, we all knew it would take a lot of work to have courses ready for the spring, but we were able to put it all together thanks to the dedication of the group.”
“The FHHS executive team and myself worked closely with the Foundation office throughout the summer and were that to find a donor to help support our cause,” Klepper said. “After this, the idea was brought up to Provost Crawford and FHHS worked with him to get the honors course idea moving in the right direction.”
The courses will be identified as “honors” on students’ transcripts. Each class in limited to 20 students and are only offered on campus.