JONESBORO — Arkansas State University will soon begin construction of a fourth residence hall for Honors College students on the Jonesboro campus to accommodate its growing program.
Work should be completed on the 104-bed, 29,667-square-foot project in August 2013, and students will move into the complex for the fall semester of that year, said Rick Stripling, ASU vice chancellor of student affairs.
The project will cost $7,131,508, he said.
Three similar honors residence halls opened in August 2009 on the Jonesboro campus and house 219 students.
When completed, the complex — called the Honors Living Learning Community — will be in a U shape near the Donald W. Reynolds Center for Health Sciences on the northern end of campus.
The halls feature students’ rooms, along with a classroom and meeting area and lounge, Stripling said.
Arkansas State University developed its honors program nearly 30 years ago, said program director Rebecca Oliver. But enrollment in the program has seen an increase in the three years since the residence halls opened.
In 2009 — the first year the halls were available — 188 freshmen enrolled in the honors program and lived in one of the three available buildings. A year later, 191 freshmen were enrolled in the program, and in 2011, 239 freshmen enrolled, Oliver said.
There were 769 freshmen and upperclassmen enrolled in the honors program last year, a 41 percent increase in enrollment compared with the 547 enrolled in 2009, Oliver said.
ASU was the second-largest university in the state last year with about 13,920 students. Student enrollment figures for the 2012 fall semester are not yet available. Oliver said she estimates that about 800 are enrolled in the honors program this year.
At the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the state’s largest higher-education institution with 23,199 students last year, workers are renovating the Hotz Hall dormitory for nearly 400 first-year Honors College students beginning next fall. UA had more than 2,450 Honors College students enrolled last spring.
In addition, UA is renovating and expanding Ozark Hall to include a new wing that will house its Honors College.
Those projects aim to foster a sense of community of Honors College students, said Kendall A. Curlee, a spokesman for the UA Honors College.
At ASU, “This will give more to our honors students’ needs and desires,” Stripling said. “I think it will help us in recruiting higher-achieving academic students.”
Oliver said the university primarily recruits in-state students for the honors residence halls. More than 94 percent of its honors students are from Arkansas. Four percent are from other states, and 1 percent is international students.
“We ask, ‘What can we do right here?’” Oliver said. “We want to keep the best of the best in Arkansas. We feel if they come here, they may stay in Arkansas after they graduate.”
Last year, 730 of the 769 honors students lived either in the Honors Living Learning Community or in one of ASU’s other residence halls.
“We will never be able to accommodate the demand of our honor students to live in the HLLC,” she said. Some of the honors students request living close together in ASU’s apartment complexes, such as the Collegiate Park and North Park Quads, she said.
“Our honors students are everywhere,” she said. “They permeate all aspects of our campus. They are in classrooms with other students, they live with other students, they are in Greek organizations, are athletes and in Student Government.”
To be eligible to enroll in the honors program and to live in the Honors Living Learning Community, incoming freshmen must have earned a composite score of at least 27 on the ACT and have a high school grade-point average of at least 3.5.
Students must maintain a 3.25 grade-point average at ASU to remain in the program. If a student’s gradepoint average dips below a 3.0, he is placed on probation. If the student cannot raise the average above a 3.0 after two semesters, the student is dismissed from the honors program.
ASU honors students can apply to live in the fourth honors residence hall in the spring semester, Oliver said.
About 3,000 students live on campus, Stripling said.
“We’re moving toward larger living communities for students with common goals and interests,” he said.
“This new [honors residence] will give us some relief,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 08/26/2012