When the idea of starting an honors college at Western Carolina University first came up, in the mid-1990s, it seemed like a big leap to many people on the regional public campus. Maybe too big a leap, given the university’s role in the state of expanding average citizens’ access to higher education. But to John W. Bardo, the chancellor at the time, the idea held too much promise to pass up. Like many public colleges over the past 25 years, Western Carolina was looking for a way to raise its academic profile and attract a kind of student who had seemed out of reach: the high academic achiever. An honors college, the thinking went, would expand recruitment, raise academic standards, and elevate the entire university’s reputation.

March 27, 2016 ・ From Chronicle of Higher Education