It's a tough job

Expanding honors college wealth to all students a worthwhile goal

As the acting dean and dean nominee of the Schreyer Honors College, Cheryl Achterberg has said she wants to develop the "untapped potentials" of the Schreyer Scholars. To do this, Achterberg has articulated four specific goals for the new college: to link residential and academic experiences, to create peer and alumni mentoring programs, to expand undergraduate education and to increase the use of the Schreyer Institute for Innovation in Learning.

"Implementing these changes won't be easy, but Achterberg's biggest challenge is much more daunting: to apply the Schreyer experience to the rest of the University community."

If Achterberg is approved as dean at Friday's University Board of Trustees meeting, the road to accomplishing these goals may be a rough one. Implementing these changes won't be easy, but Achterberg's biggest challenge is much more daunting: to apply the Schreyer experience to the rest of the University community.

The former nutrition professor has said "everything we do in this college needs to be done in all the other colleges," and clearly her plans for the Honors College would benefit non-Scholars as well. More academic dorm environments, such as the mostly-Scholar Atherton Hall, would help students create real communities and groups of friends with similar goals and interests.

Peer and alumni mentoring programs would give students concrete practical information about their chosen fields -- information difficult to find elsewhere. Mentors can help students make difficult choice-of-major and scheduling decisions, and as such are worthwhile resources.

Achterberg also said she wants to expand undergraduate research, giving students a chance to muscle in on valuable experience usually denied to them by graduate-focused professors.

The Schreyer Honors College can be a testing ground for these new initiatives -- administrators can throw out programs that don't work, and, hopefully, expand the scope of successful programs to include non-Scholars.

Achterberg has said she cares about regular University students. Now she must make it a priority to help bring some much-needed educational benefits to the masses.