Through our curriculum and programming, we want to prepare our students to be effective, ethical researchers and scholars who can collaborate on teams, communicate and engage in work for and with the public, and contribute to the scholarship of their chosen disciplines and professions. We encourage our students to challenge themselves and one another, and our commitment is to support them through these efforts.
Our innovative, interdisciplinary curriculum (19 credits total) is taught by outstanding research faculty from throughout the university and features:
- an interdisciplinary liberal arts research methodology colloquium series
- Honors seminars in humanities, social sciences, and the natural sciences where students take deep dives into the urgent questions facing different academic disciplines
- Honors College Senior Thesis, a student-designed, faculty-mentored, year-long undergraduate research project where our students bring their skills and accumulated coursework together to generate original scholarship to be presented at Research Week in the spring semester
Honors students will start their journey as a cohort through the honors curriculum:
- First Year: Honors Colloquia (6 credits total)
- Second-Third Year: Honors Seminar (6 credits total)
- Third Year: Junior Scholars Inquiry (1 credit)
- Fourth Year: Honors Senior Thesis (6 credits total)
* There will be variation to the standard curriculum schedule if a student enters Honors after their first year.
Inside and outside the classroom, we encourage our students to actively participate in the intellectual dialogues happening across our campus and within the many communities of which they are a part. To further foster a sense of citizenry, our students complete co-curricular yearly requirements throughout their time in the Honors College, which include the following:
- Community Service or Advocacy Project, where students give back to the community though service each year
- Sponsored Events, that allow students to attend events that include a variety of cultural, social, and academic experiences
- e-Reflection, where students can reflect upon their trajectory as well as academic and professional goals
Students can keep track of their co-curricular progress through Honors Points. Students will accumulate 22 points for Community Service or the Advocacy Project, 8 points for attending Sponsored Events, and 10 points, yearly, for e-Reflections. Students should end their academic year with a total of 40 points to be in good standing within the Honors College.