The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College (Photo by Phillip Waller).
The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College will be expanding due to the increasing number of students enrolled in the honors program.
In 2012, the honors college broke the 1,000-student mark for the first time, with 1,050 students enrolled, according to its website. For the 2013-14 academic year, 1,264 students applied to the honors college, and 626 students were accepted. Total enrollment increased to 1,133 students.
“We are pleasantly surprised at the growth and the number of students that qualify to be accepted in the honors college,” said John Samonds, associate dean of the honors college. “The most important part is the public space. We don’t have room to have large get-togethers, receptions and speakers.”
Douglass Sullivan-Gonzalez, dean of the honors college, said the building will be doubled in size. He emphasized the importance of stepping up the honors college during a time in which public universities are becoming more valuable.
“It will give the students more classrooms and more study space,” Sullivan-Gonzalez said. “The cost of private universities has gone out the roof since the economy downturn in 2008. There is a greater demand for quality education at a public university.”
The honors college provides an increasing number of challenging courses, opportunities for experiential learning both in the United States and abroad and avenues for effective engagement with community concerns.
For the last two years, more than 300 freshmen, averaging an ACT score of 30 and a 3.85 high school GPA, have joined the honors college each year, according to its website. Students enrolled in the honors college hail from 33 states and six foreign countries, with students from Mississippi making up 63 percent of the enrollment.
Honors students can be found in every college and school that grants bachelor’s degrees, and currently students are spread over 71 different majors, according to the website.
Construction to expand the honors college is scheduled to begin in spring 2014 and is expected to take 15 months to complete.
Freshman biochemistry major Blake Sowers, member of the honors college senate, said the extension will help grow the honors college.
“It’s exciting to see that the honors college is expanding in its number of students,” Sowers said. “This means that more and more students are trying to get the most out of what the university has to offer them and have decided that the honors college is where they can benefit most and create opportunities for the rest of their lives.”
-Randall Haley
arhaley@go.olemiss.edu
