Honors dean sets goals for college


Thursday, Feb. 26, 1998	Honors dean sets goals for college By PATRICIA K. COLE Collegian Staff Writer When Ameca Shang was finishing her freshman year at the University, she met and befriended Cheryl Achterberg, who was then a nutrition professor and an honors adviser. Achterberg is now helping to fund a play that Shang (senior-nutrition) is producing for her honors thesis. "She was very helpful from the beginning," Shang said. "She's not (helping me) because she's a professor. She's doing it because she's my friend." Helping and supporting students as they grow is one of Achterberg's favorite parts of higher education and it is also one of her goals for her new position as dean of the Schreyer Honors College. "I love seeing students develop to their maximum potential. This is a position (in which) I can watch that happen," she said. Achterberg, who has been the acting dean of the Schreyer Honors College since July, will be recommended by University President Graham Spanier to the University Board of Trustees in March.
`Couple donates $30 million to create new honors college (Sept. 15, 1997)`	The Schreyer Honors College, which was created in September by a $30 million gift from Trustee William Schreyer and his wife, Joan, has the potential to improve the academic climate of the entire University, Achterberg said. "What I hope this college can do is develop some of those programs, test their feasibility, see what works and what doesn't and (transfer) that experience to the whole University community," she said. "Everything we do in this college needs to be done in all the other colleges." Nate Cunningham (freshman-philosophy) helps Achterberg research the expansion and said Achterberg will help bring the improvements to the rest of the campus. She will make substantial academic changes instead of cosmetic demographic changes, he added.
`Honors dean selection nears (Jan. 30, 1998)`	Some of the changes and programs Achterberg said she would like to implement are: link academic and residential experiences create a mentoring system between students and one between students and alumni in the field expand undergraduate research increase the use of The Schreyer Institute for Innovation in Learning Achterberg has begun to implement some of these changes, such as creating reading groups with faculty and younger and older students and spending time with students in dorms and dining halls. "You can't do this from afar. At least you can't do it well," she said. "I think there are so many untapped potentials."