ECE James Scholar Program

James Scholar Program: Summary | Rules | Contracts | Advisors
                                         College of Engineering James Schlolars

Summary of ECE James Scholar Program

Who?

  • Entering freshmen are in the top 1% of their high school class or have a -- 33 ACT composite or 1450 SAT (approx).
  • To stay in the program ECE students must have a 3.5 GPA (top 25%). The rest of the College of Engineering uses a 3.3 cutoff.
  • To enter the program after arriving, students must have a 3.5 GPA and register with Dean Ravaioli - ONLY during the first two weeks of each term.

What?

  • Sophmores must develop an honors contract online. (See CoE James Scholar Program)
  • Subject area is wide open -- research, advanced coursework, foreign study, archaeology, ...
  • We have always had students doing honors work who weren't being recognized for it. Now we'll recognize them.
  • Most minors will count, except the CS minor and Math Minor.

When?

  • Freshmen take one per year of an honors course or section -- these are indicated by an "H" in the section designation in the Class Schedule.
  • Sophomores take either one honors course or section, or one course from their honors contracts during their second year on campus.
  • Freshmen and sophomores can take "honors credit learning agreements" where the instructor agrees to assign honors credit to a regular course if the student does agreed upon extra work. Almost no faculty knows what this is so the student has to inform them.
  • Contracts must be submitted by the end of the second year on campus (e.g. sophomores -- but not first year "sophomores" who have lots of AP credit).
  • Contracts may be modified at any time.
  • Contracts are completed over the junior and senior years.

Record Keeping and Validation

  • Dean Ravaioli checks GPAs in the summer and dismisses students whose GPAs are low.
  • The contract is entered on the graduation check database as if it were a minor. Students will soon be able to access their "degree audit" on line.
  • Formally, the College Honors Council must approve all contracts and acts as a coordinating body. It is unlikely it will veto anything approved by an honors adviser but it will help by issuing guidelines as it reviews contracts.

Perks

  • Preregister first!
  • Stack pass to the library
  • Notation on transcript

ECE Special Rules

  • 3.5 GPA instead of 3.3.
  • Scholars must take ECE 200 once per year, sophomore through senior -- the goal is to expose them to ECE topics more frequently and earlier in their careers.
  • Encouraged: Oral / poster report for those doing research, at the spring ECE Undergrad Research Symposium

Observations

  • The challenge for sophomores is to envision what they can and want to do while they are still taking basic classes.
  • They should be encouraged to modify the contract as needed.

Role of Honors Advisors

  • List of ECE James Scholar Advisors
  • Collectively:
    • Supervise the special meetings of James Scholar students.
    • Supervise the public reports of activity.
  • Individually:
    • Encourage our students.
    • Suggest, suggest, suggest... people to contact, ways to figure out whether they like an area, courses to take, ....

Range of Contracts

  1. College of Engineering and ECE Dept recognize all minors.
  2. ECE Honors Advisors believe that the proposed course work should be capped with an ECE 396 project or an ECE 497/499 thesis.
  3. Guidelines for honors contracts can be found at:
    http://jamesscholar.cen.uiuc.edu/contracts.php