Skip to Main content

Dr. Shirley Eoff: Duty and Honors

August 13, 2014

Students in ASU’s Honors Program can only go as far as Dr. Shirley Eoff is willing to guide them.

Luckily for them, her well of support and assistance never runs dry.

“My job is to help the students maximize their opportunities,” Eoff said, “and I’m prepared to do as much as they are to help them achieve their goals. I’m also prepared to encourage them to do more than they think they can. Yes, it takes a lot of extra hours of my time, but I think that is what honors education is all about. It’s about learning across the spectrum, not just in the classroom.”

“There are those students who have that special spark, and you know they can compete with the best students anywhere if they are given the opportunities.”

Dr. Shirley Eoff

Since Eoff became director in 2009, Honors Program enrollment has grown from 59 students to 146. In the past two years alone, honors students have participated in prestigious academic programs in Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., England, Germany, Guatemala and Italy in fields ranging from international business, history and neuroscience to political science, English and nursing.

“There are those students who have that special spark,” Eoff said, “and you know they can compete with the best students anywhere if they are given the opportunities. All they need is the encouragement and support to get through the process.”

Eoff also teaches honors seminars each semester, is the award-winning advisor to the Honors Student Association and won ASU’s 2012–13 Gary and Pat Rodgers Distinguished Faculty Award.

Nominated by current and former Honors Program students, Eoff has been selected for the ASU Alumni Association’s 2014 Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award.

“It means a great deal when students and former students recognize that you’ve had some influence in their lives,” Eoff said. “I am blessed to be working with the honors students because every day they amaze and inspire me.”