Proposal June 21, 2001

Goals of the Program

Time Frame

Admissions

Size

The Student Population

The Program

Recognition of Students Who Complete the Honors Program

Constraints on the Design of the Program

Open Questions

There are two primary goals of this program:

• Improve the quality and the reputation of our undergraduate program
• Attract the best students to our program

In addition, there are several secondary goals:

• Set the students' expectations for their time here by offering them a challenging first year
• Increase undergraduate participation in research by:
• Moving the students through the early part of our program quickly so that they're prepared to embark on research by their junior years
• Introducing the students to the research projects that are going on in the department
• Encouraging the students to find a faculty sponsor and get involved in research
• Expose the students to teaching by getting them involved in the undergraduate student mentor program that we plan to start next year.
• Interest the students in pursuing academic careers.
• Increase the number of industry leaders to emerge from our program
• Attract more resources

Back to Top

We propose to accept our first entering freshman class into this program in Fall, 2002. Beginning Fall, 2003, we will begin accepting applications from current students who want to transfer into the program. We could see our first graduates in Spring 2005 or later.

Back to Top

There will be two paths by which students may enter the program:

1. From high school. Students who enter at the beginning of the freshman year will benefit the most from the program, since there will be an intense freshman year curriculum. Our goal is to recruit a full class of entering freshmen, although it may be hard to do this in the first few years when the program is not well known. Freshmen will be admitted only in the fall of each year.
   
   Students who enter the program in the freshman year will be expected to be "307-ready". However, we plan to explore the possibility, if there are promising students who do not meet this requirement, of allowing students to come to UT in the summer and take 303e so that they will be 307-ready by fall.
2. During sophomore, junior, or senior year. Students who enter at this point will be able to enroll in honors sections of upper division classes and to participate in the research-oriented activities.

We have worked out few of the details here. However, we do think that students should have to apply specifically to the program and that the decisions about whom to admit should be handled by us (and not by UT Admissions).

We need to get information about our program posted on various University web sites by September at the latest. Among the ones we should use are: the CS department, the College, the Dean’s Scholars, the University Honors Center, and University Admissions. We also need to work with Admissions as they make visits to high schools.

We may also want to organize special recruiting events in the major cities in Texas.

Back to Top

We anticipate a steady state enrollment of between 40 and 50 students per year in the program. We expect (once we reach steady state) to admit about 40-50 students in the fall of each year. However, we expect that some students will drop out of the program (either voluntarily or because their grades fall below some threshold we’ll set). Those students will be replaced by others who join the program later. We’ve chosen this size since it corresponds to the size of a typical CS class. So, at this size, we should be able to offer an honors section once a year of any class we think should have such a section.

The biggest constraint on the size of the program will be faculty time to supervise honors research projects.

Back to Top

We expect that the students in this program will be interested in both honors classes and research. We will admit students into the program based on their academic records. To stay in the program, students must maintain a minimum GPA.

We expect all students in the program to get involved in research. We cannot force this. But completing an honors thesis will be a requirement for certification as having completed the program (see below).

Students who are not in the honors program but who want to do research will still have the opportunity to register for 370 and 379H, just as they do now.

Back to Top

The program will have two parts:

1. An academic program, consisting of courses and research work, as described below.
2. An enrichment program designed to give the students a "small school" environment while they are here. We envision lectures, social events, field trips, company sponsored events, etc.

• The programming sequence: Students will complete the equivalent of 307, 315, and 328 during their freshman year. We’re not sure exactly how to do this. The option we’re now favoring is to give the students credit for 307, possibly after the end of the first year and offer special honors sections of 315 and 328. In these two classes we would teach the content of all three at the faster pace that will be appropriate for the honors students. This approach is appealing because it means we don’t have to create new course numbers and clutter up every document about our program, prerequisites, etc. with the words 315 or ??? and 328 or ???. But we haven’t worked out the details of this part yet.
• The theory sequence: We’ll offer special honors sections of PHL313K and 336. We probably want the PHL313K class to be taught by a CS faculty member. It may make sense to create a separate CS course number for this, or it may be easier to work with Philosophy to do it under their aegis.
• The hardware/systems sequence: This is a long sequence: CS 310, EE 316, CS 352, and culminating in CS 372. So we need to get the students started on it during their first year.

A typical schedule for freshman year for one of our honors students might be (plus one or two other classes):

We expect to offer special honors sections of some, but not all, of our upper division classes. We need to make this decision on a course by course basis, considering two factors:

• Will there be 40-50 honors students each year who will want to take the class? Clearly all the required classes meet this criterion. So do the popular electives.
• Does an honors section make sense given the subject matter of the class? We need to discuss this question with the faculty who teach each of our classes.

We are currently thinking that we should offer honors sections of, at a minimum, 336, 341, 345, 352, 372, and 375.

We expect to allow nonhonors students into these honors sections in some cases. There should probably be a minimum gpa requirement and consent of the instructor will be required.

In their sophomore year, we expect the honors students will take:

CS 321H will be a new functional programming class in which we expose the students to concepts that are (1) key to developing the students’ thinking about computer science and (2) beyond the grasp of most of our students and thus hard to fit in early on in our standard curriculum. The details of this class need still to be worked out.

CS178H will be a one hour class designed to introduce the students to research. There may be some discussion of the process of research in general. There will also be presentations by our faculty in which they describe their research projects and the opportunities that they have to offer to undergraduates.

Students will take other CS and non-CS classes. Some will be in honors sections.

In their junior year, we expect the honors students will take:

Some students may not begin their independent study until the second semester of junior year, but we’d like to encourage it to begin earlier than that. We want students to be far enough along in their research that they will be able to report on their research results as part of their application to graduate school (which must be submitted by the end of the fall semester of senior year).

In their senior year, we expect the honors students will take:

*The 379H in the fall might be continued (via an incomplete) into the spring but having at least a draft version of the honors thesis completed by December could be important for graduate school applications.

Back to Top

We want the students who complete our honors program to be recognized for doing so. Right now, there are two things a student can receive:

• Graduation with "Special Departmental Honors", which requires taking 379H, writing an honors thesis, and having a high GPA.
• Graduation with "honors" (or "high honors" or "highest honors"), which is based solely on GPA.

We probably want something new that reflects two things:

1. completion of some number of honors courses, and
2. an honors thesis.

Back to Top

As we work on the design of this program, we have in mind the following constraints:

• We have to be careful that we don’t do damage to our mainstream program as we construct this new program.
• It must be possible for students who start the program in their freshman year to leave and move into the mainstream program.
• It must be possible for talented upper division students to move into the honors program.
• We won’t get a lot of additional resources for this program, so we need to design most of the classes so that they don’t consume more resources (faculty and TAs) than a typical CS class.
• Not all honors students will fit a single mold. Despite our best efforts, many will probably plan careers in industry rather than academia. This means that they will not all choose the same upper division elective classes.

Back to Top

1. Content of the program
1. How should we organize the programming sequence in the freshman year?
2. Should we create a CS version of PHL313K?
3. Exactly what goes into the new functional programming class? Should we advertise it with an AI emphasis to make it sound exciting?
4. What upper division classes should have separate honors sections, in addition to the ones already mentioned?
2. Admissions, Administration, and Resources
1. How much of the faculty’s time will it take to get 50 students/year involved in research? Can we make this tractable? Can we try to make sure that the load is fairly distributed?
2. How will we do admissions? Should we use test scores and grades, or do we want to commit to reading essays and recommendation letters? Should we organize special recruiting events?
3. Would it be possible for students who are accepted to UT for fall to enter UT in the summer and take 303e or 307 if they are very promising students who have not had a good CS background in high school?
4. What kind(s) of certifications do we want for students who complete the program? Can we create something in addition to the current "Graduation with Special Departmental Honors"?
5. Will the program have a director? What would we expect that person to do?
6. Exactly how much will this cost? Can we guarantee to have the resources?
7. Can we inaugurate an "undergrad TA" experience so that these students can get experience with teaching? This could increase their interest in graduate school.

Back to Top