Kansas University’s honors program prides itself on offering an Ivy League-type experience, with small classes and top teachers, inside a large state university.

But sometimes it’s unclear how an honors course differs from a regular one at KU, said Kareem Tawfik, a KU sophomore in the honors program.

“Students will complain about that,” Tawfik said. “Right now, it seems like there’s not a whole lot of standardization across the honors courses, and there’s not really a set criteria for what an honors course should be.”

KU is attempting to remedy this and other concerns as it revamps the honors program, with changes to course offerings, admissions and other areas.

“We want to improve the quality and the experience,” said Stanley Lombardo, professor and director of the honors program.

About 50 KU faculty have been called on to help guide the changes.

Many of the changes are expected to come during the 2006-07 academic year.

The most noticeable to students: the introduction of a “commons course” that will be piloted next year and likely expanded in the future. The course will be larger than current honors courses, with 60 students in its first run. Typical honors classes have 12 to 15 students.

The class, titled “Rebuilding New Orleans,” will be team-taught by faculty from economics and engineering. Organizers want students to see how their academic studies can be applied to real-world matters and to see how different disciplines approach a topic, said Tara Welch, associate professor of classics who chairs the honors program’s curriculum committee.

KU plans to expand the program after its pilot run so that the course will serve all honors students, giving them a common class experience.

Faculty also want honors courses to have some focus on international awareness, and scholarship and research. When possible, there will be an international component, such as discussion with students overseas. Students will learn about how academics conduct research and the limitations of it.

Organizers are changing advising to make sure that all students get it early on – a key, they say, to student success.

KU hopes to add more honors courses for juniors and seniors. And faculty are working on ways to make the program more accessible to students in the professional schools. Currently, about 80 percent of honors students are in KU’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The changes may include raising the bar on admissions to the program, which serves about 1,200 KU students, Lombardo said.

Though the program doesn’t look at academics alone, it generally requires students have an ACT score of at least 28 and a grade-point average of at least 3.75.

About 300 freshmen are admitted into the honors program per year. The program offers small classes taught by top faculty. It prides itself on top advising. Students who go through the program, taking at least six honors courses and meeting other requirements, graduate with university honors.

Kim Wilcox, former dean of the College of Liberals Arts and Sciences, tapped Lombardo two years ago to lead the honors program with hopes that Lombardo could help make changes, Lombardo said.

Lombardo was charged with helping bring focus and direction to the program.

“The system, as it is, evolved without any master plan,” Lombardo said. “There was no common focus.”

Tawfik, student representative to the honors program executive committee, said he thought the program had a good reputation.

“There’s no reason not to improve what’s already a good thing,” he said.