Supporting the Success of Honors Commuter Students

This paper will review a variety of ways to support commuter success on campus, specifically for Honors Students. Honors Students typically have an intense workload that expects detailed focus into a variety of specific areas for class purpose as well as an expectance in extra-curricular activities and volunteer work. Because of the high expectations Honors students face, there is a need for universities to provide support networks for students. Universities can support their students in a variety of ways, however specific emphasis needs to be placed on Honors students who commute to campus. The author argues two influential ways that can effectively support Honors students that are transitioning to college and/or continuing college education. The first is an example of tangible support and having a student area for Honors students on campus. These usually manifest themselves as “Honors Lounges” that provide a physical area on a campus specifically for Honors students that isn’t inherently focused on studying or academic activities. The main focus of these Honors spaces is to have a space specifically for Honors which could be the only physical place on campus for Honors students that commute. Resident Honors students have the additional resource of a dorm on campus which functions as “their space” on campus but for commuter students, they are in need of somewhere on campus to call, “theirs”. A more personal approach to providing support for commuter students is having Peer Mentors available to students. Peer Mentors that are Honors students themselves are especially useful because they’re able to empathize with students with the shared experience of being a college Honors student