FGCU plans to launch Honors College in 2017

Florida Gulf Coast University plans to transition its Honors Program to an Honors College during the school's spring semester in 2017.

The implementation of the Honors College was one of a slew of things that a university committee discussed Wednesday as it tried to nail down how the school should go about implementing its strategic plan.

The plan is a look at a long list of programs and goals that FGCU wants to try to implement during the next five years. The list includes looking at the feasibility of creating schools of dentistry and pharmacy.

The plan is centered around four areas: academic excellence, entrepreneurship, health sciences and emerging pre-eminence. The committee, made up of FGCU board members, voted 4-0 Wednesday to move forward with implementing the plan.

The full FGCU board will consider the plan's implementation in September.

Two things in FGCU's plan have caught the attention of the Florida Board of Governors. The board's thoughts on those things came up during Wednesday's meeting at FGCU.

When the Board of Governors met in June, some members said FGCU needed to spend its time improving poor performance areas rather than considering whether to start dental and pharmacy schools.

The Board of Governors also has cautioned schools that it was not its intent for all schools in the State University System to try to reach emerging pre-eminence status, FGCU President Wilson Bradshaw. said.

Board: FGCU should take dental, pharmacy schools off radar

FGCU isn't close to meeting any of the criteria to be an emerging pre-eminent institution, but the school includes it in its plan as an "aspirational pillar for long-term success."

"If you can't even consider being an emerging pre-eminent than I am going to retire from the board because I am not going to be part of something that's going to be mired in mediocrity," board member Ken Smith said.

FGCU's transition of the Honors Program has been a much-talked about item among the university's leaders. Some at the school see the lack of an Honors College as one of the reasons why FGCU has been unable to attract many National Merit Scholarship winners.

"I think we will be able to talk very efficiently about an Honors College," Bradshaw said. "High achieving students understand an Honors College. When we lead with an Honors Program, while it's a strong program, we have to explain to them what it really is."

The next steps for the transition are to have more discussions with faculty members about what curriculum to establish for the Honors College and to seek some private funding for the college, said Dawn Kirby, dean of undergraduate studies at FGCU.

Students enrolled in FGCU's Honors Program will be grandfathered into the Honors College. The admission standards for the Honors College will be different than the standards that students have had to meet to get into the Honors Program, Bradshaw said.

"I think we will see ... as an Honors College it will be more competitive to get into that program," he said.