Dear Editor: The Honors Institute is always happy to be the focus of articles/opinion columns in the EVC Flyer.

The latest article by student journalist Dan King, entitled Student 'dishonored' by Honors is, however, an exception to the usually balanced reporting of programs/events on campus.

The rude, sarcastic, and in many ways insulting tenor of the complaint Mr. King has with his brief and tentative contact with the Honor Institute is way out of proportion to whatever issue he try's to make in his "opinion" article.

Dan mentions that his intent in joining the Honors Institute was to "spend a month or two in the program and report all the wonderful benefits available to Honors Institute members".

Dan goes on to state his various contacts with me, and with Bev Strauss, Honors Institute administrative assistant, and Mary Ann Flores, Honors Councilor, and our apparent failure to explain the Institute requirements for his active membership.

In the four contacts I personally had with Dan he never once raised a concern about his membership.

Instead, Mr. King chose to write his article slamming the Honors Institute and the entire staff in a most unfortunate manner.

We understand student journalists are perfecting their skills and refining their judgments, but there is also a great responsibility for fairness and balance when writers are given a broad public forum to state their views.

My immediate question is, what is the faculty advisor for journalism's role in overseeing the articles/opinion columns that get published?

I assume the advisor reads the text before publication and comments and makes suggestions to students.

Why didn't the advisor suggest Dan walk the 300 steps from Journalism to Honors and state his concerns?

In any case, for the benefit of Dan and others students and faculty, the three levels of involvement in Honors:

1. Any student can register for any honors course, with no minimum GPA needed.
2. Students with a GPA of 3.25 or students with high school test results in the 90 percentile, or students with a recommendation from an EVC professor can apply to and be admitted to the Honors Institute. In order to be an active member of the Institute and take advantage of its many benefits, students must have taken an honors course or be enrolled in an honors class.
3. Students with a GPA of 3.5 can join the EVC chapter of Phi Theta Kappa, the International Honors Organization.

There are many wonderful benefits for students who take advantage of the honors opportunities at EVC including:

• priority registration
• Honors scholarships
• Honors counseling
• reimbursement for cultural events
• Honors field trips (the last two were to Santa Clara University, and Stanford University)
• dynamic Honors classes offered with small classes full of ambitious, bright students taught by our best professors
• the opportunity to meet and associate other students who aim high and strive to achieve their best
• and finally the pleasure and pride of graduating with Honors and having the Honors designation after many of your courses on their transcript, a most valuable asset when transferring or applying for a job.

We welcome all students including Dan King, as our only purpose is to assist our average students to be better and our better students to be the best they can be.

Our motto is "Aim High", in academia and in life.

Walter Soellner
Professor of Art
Coordinator of the EVC Honors Institute