Frequently Asked Questions

The Forum develops students in the cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal domains by specifically engaging the following skills during semester-long individual and group-based assignments:

Interdisciplinarity: Forum teams are composed of students from varied majors, schools, and perspectives, and they are required to produce a novel and socially innovative idea connecting two or more United Nations-Sustainable Development Goals. 

Critical Thinking and Creative Problem Solving: Central to the Forum's purpose and team-based projects is the charge to identify and propose creative, socially innovative solutions to complex global issues.

Logical Reasoning and Communication: Forum students tackle global problems and produce effective responses and plans within local contexts, requiring them to utilize logical reasoning and refined communication skills (both written and oral).

Team Based Collaboration: Working together demands that diverse student teams engage in modeling collaborative and constructive behavior.

Systems and Design Thinking: Students have to innovate new solutions based on "bottom-up" human-centered approaches to major issues, while also being mindful of overall systemic and theoretical thinking. 
 

The Forum is designed to develop cognitive and non-cognitive skills which advance student readiness for study at Rutgers as well as internships and beyond graduation. All work in the Forum is designed to provide formative learning across three broad domains of competence.

The Cognitive Domain, which includes critical thinking, reasoning, and logical problem solving.

The Intrapersonal Domain, which involves self-management, including the ability to regulate one’s own behavior and emotions to reach goals.

The Interpersonal Domain, which involves the ability to express information to others, as well as interpret others’ messages and provide appropriate responses.

None of those, but each is important for the core goal of the Forum, which is skills engagement. The Forum’s curriculum is singularly designed to allow students to fine-tune their cognitive skills and develop their core of non-cognitive skills. This combination will help students advance toward higher-level academic coursework, internships, and be effectively prepared for future employers and graduate programs. 

As skills engagement is the core goal of the Forum, social innovation is the vehicle for learning these skills through experience. Student teams propose ideas that are practical and well researched. Only a limited number of students will immediately be interested in social innovation per se, so social projects are vehicles for students to develop key skills and mindsets around integrating academic knowledge and social impact. The UN-SDGs act as a framework for interdisciplinary and critical thinking allowing students to address the challenges that cut across multiple dimensions of human life--material, economic, environmental, social, cultural, technical, political, medical, aesthetic, and moral. 

All Honors College students are trained in the Forum, and then employ their experience and knowledge in advanced research and fellowship programs, in global humanitarian entrepreneurship commitments, in dedicated service work, and in preparation for their own Honors College Capstone projects. 

The Honors College stands for Curiosity, Knowledge, and Purpose. The Forum in turn is structured around three modules: drawing on the curiosity of students to identify global issues; challenging students to propose socially innovative solutions to these issues by harnessing the full body of their knowledge through active research; and having student teams present well-researched, innovatively designed, and socially purposeful ideas for the betterment of society. 

Academic specialization at the beginning of higher education is not sustainable given the global challenges that students face. By being exposed to multiple disciplines and complex, multi-dimensional problems (political, social, cultural, economic, technological, ethical, legal, scientific), entering Honors College students receive an immediate, intensive training in higher-order problem solving, gain critical professional skills, and are more quickly prepared to make informed decisions about their respective majors and research plans.

At the beginning of their college careers, students may not understand the importance of skills—they are focused on classes and grades. But employers and graduate and professional programs definitely care. Detailed, repeated studies show that the learning outcomes and competencies currently being called for by both employers and institutions of higher education include written and oral communication skills, teamwork skills, ethical decision making, critical thinking, and the ability to apply knowledge in real-world settings. The Forum is an integrative educational experience that can play a pivotal role in student learning as well as student career outcomes.

Shan Reeves, a licensed social worker, is a part of the Honors College team and provides community based support to our Honors College students through a program known as Let’s Talk. Let’s Talk is being offered remotely via phone and video appointments. Students can call 848-932-7884 to request a private and confidential virtual appointment with Mr. Reeves, our HC embedded counselor. Students are asked to leave a voicemail with their full name, phone number, and RUID. For a full list of resources and support, please see our Wellness & Counseling webpage.

Each first-year student in the Honors College is assigned an Honors College Academic Advisor, so there is a natural connection between the HC and your student. Each student was emailed contact information from the Honors College Office of Academic Advising and from their individual advisor. If your student has not yet met with their advisor, please encourage them to do so. Advisors are available to assist students with the transition to college and to provide guidance and support on a variety of academic concerns. 

Professors can also be contacted remotely. Please encourage your student to reach out to both the HC Advisor and their professors if they are experiencing any difficulties with their classes. Learn more about our Academic Advising team.

Students can obtain tutoring sessions through the Rutgers Learning Centers. The services are free and include one-on-one tutoring, academic coaching, study groups, and workshops focusing on topics such as time management and organization.

Honors College Changemaking Communities will continue through the fall and into the winter. The Changemaking Communities are opportunities to connect with classmates and college staff. Other opportunities will be made available throughout the semester, and your student’s classes also provide an opportunity. For more ways to get involved at the HC, please visit our Getting Involved webpage.