Dear WRHC members,
Greetings from beautiful Bozeman! It was a pleasure to welcome many of you to our campus this past March for the 2019 WRHC conference. The halls of Asbjornson Hall are still reverberating with the excited voices of our students and faculty, discussing their work and dreams for the future. I hope that you all left our campus with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. I know that we were inspired and filled with a sense of gratitude for the transformative work of Honors Programs and Colleges in our region.
I read the Call for Proposals for the National Society for Minorities in Honors Conference with great interest. Our thanks to Cal State Fullerton and UC Irvine Honors for hosting this important conference. This is of critical importance to all of us as we strive to provide all our students, regardless of origin or social economic status, with access to the well-rounded and challenging educational opportunities that Honors Colleges and Programs can provide. Here at Montana State, we are working hard to recruit and retain American Indian, veteran and first-generation students to our Honors College. We have had success in our efforts, but much more needs to be done.
I am particularly interested in developing dual-enrollment courses in Honors. To date we have two such courses at our university, as well as an Honors Academy for incoming Honors students, all designed to allow students to complete Honors credits before entering the university as freshmen. The response has been tremendous. I am happy to share the “how to” aspects of these initiatives.
I hope to meet many of you at upcoming conferences, including NCUR 2020, which will be here in Bozeman.
Wishing you all every success for the fall semester.
Sincerely,
Dr. Ilse-Mari Lee, Dean
Montana State University Honors College
WRHC President, 2019-20
Western Regional Honors Council 