Since
1997, the Honors Program at Ferris State has grown from 133 students
in 50 majors to 464 students in 84 majors in fall of 2003. 192
freshmen joined the ranks this year, the largest freshmen class
of honors students ever. With the addition of Henderson as a third
Honors hall this year, we can accommodate our cohorts.
This year 138 honors freshmen and sophomores
are in Pre-Pharmacy. Pharmacy is a “hot” major right
now. An agreement between Honors and the College of Pharmacy has
also contributed to the big surge in Pre-Pharmacy applicants.
Students who maintain a 3.25 GPA, score at least 70 percent on
the Pharmacy College Aptitude Test and fulfill the cultural event,
organization and community service requirements to Honors are
guaranteed admission to Pharmacy school.
As we have grown our goals have changed. At
first, simply recruiting more students to the program was the
focus. Now, while we continue to recruit, we also direct our energy
toward fundraising events, seek internships for our students from
Honors Advisory Board members, and groom students for Truman,
Marshall, Rhodes, Fulbright and Goldwater scholarships.
University administration, Ferris faculty and,
most significantly, the students have combined to make the Honors
Program a success. Before Honors existed, some people found it
hard to imagine Ferris with such a program. Now, it would be even
harder to imagine Ferris without this group of students who do
so much for the Big Rapids community, student government, the
student newspaper and the University as a whole.
The words of John Henry Newman capture the spirit
of Honors at Ferris State, “When a multitude of young people,
keen, open-hearted, sympathetic and observant, as young people
are, come together and freely mix with each other, even if there
be no one to teach them, that youthful community will constitute
a whole, it will embody a specific idea, it will represent a doctrine…and
it will furnish principles of thought and action.”
