Advising First-Generation and Socioeconomically Diverse Honors Students

Authors

Angela D. Mead, Appalachian State UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

2023

Document Type

Book Chapter

Citation

Chapter 9, pages 159-172

In: Advising for Today's Honors Students, Erin E. Edgington, editor

National Collegiate Honors Council, Lincoln, Nebraska, United States, 2023

Comments

Copyright 2023, National Collegiate Honors Council. Used by permission

Abstract

Honors programs and colleges increasingly consider socioeconomic status as a form of diversity by actively recruiting first-generation and low-income college students. Supporting this movement, the National Collegiate Honors Council’s “Shared Principals and Practices of Honors Education” (2022) highlights the need for inclusive excellence from across all communities. First-generation and low-income students are often high-potential students, and their inclusion into honors communities enhances the whole. The challenge, though, is retaining and graduating these students at rates similar to their more advantaged peers. Academic advising can be an effective tool in these efforts.

First-generation and socioeconomically diverse college students are a large and integral part of college demographics, and they are a group that honors programs and colleges should seek to recruit, retain, and graduate. While these students may face more challenges than some of their more advantaged peers, research shows that they are capable of excelling in college (Pascarella et al., 2004) and, thus, in honors education. With support, especially via honors advising, first-generation and socioeconomically diverse college students can be successful participants and graduates of these programs, which will, in turn, help to end disadvantageous cycles for these students and their families. For honors programs and colleges, growing the number of first-generation and socioeconomically diverse colleges students will increase diversity as well as contribute positively toward institutional goals of expanding diversity and social justice.