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History of the Honors College
The fall of 2013 marked the transition of the Honors Programs into the Honors College, but the two Honors programs have a long history.
The Presidential Honors Program started in the fall of 1985 with fifteen students, and the curriculum consisted of two special Honors seminars. The size of the program has gradually increased to its current size of around sixty students, and the curriculum now includes Honors core courses, three Honors seminars, and a senior research project. The Presidential Honors scholarship amount has gradually increased from $2,500 in 1985 to the current amount of $7,000, which adds up to a $28,000 scholarship over four years.
The Honors Degree Program offered its first Honors core course in 1990, one section of English 112 with twenty-five students. Now over 900 students participate in the Honors Degree Program, and the Honors College offers Honors sections of most core courses, special Honors seminars, as well as a number of upper-level Honors options. We also have a number of Honors Degree Program scholarships.
The Honors College now sponsors numerous cultural and academic enrichment events that are open to students in both Honors programs. And in the fall of 2016 the new Honors Hall opened, housing 440 Honors students and the offices of the Honors College.
Directors
1985–1988
Dr. Russell Long
1988–1992
Dr. Mallory Young
1992–1996
Dr. Patricia Zelman
1996–2023
Dr. Craig Clifford
2023- present
Dr. Eileen Faulkenberry
Professor of Mathematics
Dean, Honors College
About the Dean
Dr. Faulkenberry joined Tarleton State University in 2013. She is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics, and the Associate Dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. She earned her BS in Mathematics, summa cum laude – Honors, from Henderson State University, and earned both an MS in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Professional Education Studies with an emphasis in Mathematics Education from Oklahoma State University. She has received numerous awards and honors throughout her career, including several Teaching Excellence awards from the Texas A&M System, The Ron Barnes Distinguished Service to Students Award from the Mathematical Association of America, and was recently named to the TAMUS Chancellor’s Academy of Teacher Educators.
Honors Graduates
The Tarleton State University Honors College now has 1,655 alumni!
Our first graduating class consisted of only two students in the fall of 1998. In the spring of 2022, we had 148 graduates.
We have had 206 outstanding graduates and 13 graduation speakers.
312 of our students have graduated summa cum laude, 299 have graduated magna cum laude, and 495 have graduated cum laude.
We have 1630 Honors Degree Program graduates and 308 Presidential Honors Program graduates.
About the Outgoing Dean
Dr. Craig Clifford served as the Honors College Dean for an impressive 27 years. He did his undergraduate work in Plan II (the liberal arts honors program) at the University of Texas at Austin with a concentration in philosophy. He completed his Ph.D. in philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1981, writing a dissertation on Plato and Martin Heidegger under Professor Kah-Kyung Cho. He studied German and attended lectures on Plato by Professor Emeritus Hans-Georg Gadamer in Heidelberg, Germany, in the summer of 1978.
Dr. Clifford has taught at Tarleton since 1983, including an annual Presidential Honors Seminar on “The Concept of a Liberal Education.” He also regularly taught the philosophy of the Italian Renaissance for the Honors College study abroad program every summer in Urbino, Italy.
Alumni Day
Honors College Alumni Day is an opportunity for us to share the growth and development of the Honors College with you – our Alumni. We invite you to spend the full day with us, or simply select what parts of the day you would like to participate in.
For more information, contact us at honors@tarleton.edu or (254) 968-1926.