Feb. 7, 2003

Contact: Mary Jane Dunlap, University Relations, (785) 864-8853.

KU Honors Program director retiring; national search begins for replacement

LAWRENCE -- Barbara Schowen, who has directed the University Honors Program at the University of Kansas for the past seven years and taught in the chemistry department for 26 years, has announced her plans to retire in June.

Kim Wilcox, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said a national search has begun to fill the honors program director position.

As honors program director, Schowen oversees a program for about 1,500 of KU's top undergraduate students in all academic disciplines.

The honors program director also serves as KU's official representative for the Rhodes, Marshall, Mitchell, Truman, Goldwater and Udall nationally competitive scholarships. Schowen and the honors program staff advise KU scholars for these competitions and help students apply for National Science Foundation, Mellon, Javits, Gates, Churchill and Hertz national graduate fellowship competitions and for Rotary Ambassadorial and the USA Today academic team undergraduate competitions.

This fall KU nominees won both Rhodes and Marshall scholarships. About 40 KU students have won prestigious national scholarships under Schowen's direction.

Wilcox said, "The directorship of the program is an important one as we entrust this position with the responsibility of providing enriched educational opportunities for the academically most talented, promising and motivated undergraduate students at KU.

"Barbara Schowen has done an admirable job in providing this direction and leadership. My intent is to recruit a senior person who will continue to help us move the University Honors Program ahead."

KU's honors program began in 1956 with 33 high-ability students. When Schowen became director in fall 1996, the program included 1,079 students. This fall the program enrolled1,523 students.

Under Schowen's leadership the program has grown not only in the number of students but also in staff, course offerings and increased attention to competitive scholarships and fellowships. The number of KU's Undergraduate Research Awards for spring and summer has more than doubled from 30 available in 1995 to nearly 70. Schowen also introduced an annual undergraduate research symposium in 1997 offering 60 to 70 students the opportunity to present their research and creative projects to the public.

Each spring, Schowen and her staff recruit faculty across the campus, including the chancellor, to teach about 20 fall tutorial classes of about 12 students each. The classes introduce freshmen to the campus, and the programs and the faculty serve as the freshmen's first adviser at KU.

Within the College and the chemistry department, Schowen has been recognized nationally for her leadership role in publicizing the educational importance of undergraduate research for science majors and for her efforts in providing opportunities for science majors to engage in genuine research experiences during their undergraduate years. For the past 15 summers, she served as co-director of one of the longest-running NSF-funded undergraduate chemistry research sites in the nation.

She has been the co-principal investigator for the NSF-sponsored national Workshop on Undergraduate Research and was a co-organizer of the Symposium on Undergraduate Research at the 1992 national American Chemical Society meeting in San Francisco.

Schowen's research interests are in bio-organic chemistry. She regularly teaches general and organic chemistry courses along with a team-taught biennial interdisciplinary honors course, "Science, Technology and Society."

Her many honors include being named to the Kansas Women's Hall of Fame and receiving a W.T. Kemper-KU Endowment Association Fellowship for Teaching Excellence and the 2002 J. Michael Young Award for academic advising in the natural sciences, offered through the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Schowen received her bachelor's degree from Wellesley College and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964. She is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi honor societies.