Honors College Curriculum and Degree Requirements

Faculty have designed the Honors College curriculum to challenge students to greater academic excellence. Either in honors designated classes or in an honors option of a regular class, the Honors College seeks to mold students to be critical and independent thinkers with greater responsibility for investigating the depth and/or breadth of a class topic. That independent thinking culminates in the student creating and executing a self-designed honors project in their final year. Altogether, this specialized curriculum is transformative, making the student better prepared and more confident to begin graduate school or enter the job market upon graduation. Honors College students have shown that the work they accomplish in their honors coursework leading up to the honors project process can deeply impact not only them, but the world around them as well. Examples of this include:

• The creation of public service announcement videos on public health issues for college students in Honors Wellness
• Collaborating and debating as a class about how to effectively donate real money to real charity organizations (and present the decisions to the donors) in Honors Philosophy
• Discussions and simulations of how socioeconomic structures evolve in a society and how that impacts individuals and the population as a whole

Honors degree Requirements

Honors Students need to fulfill at least 18 credit hours of Honors coursework with the following requirements to complete their honors concentration and graduate with distinction:

• 12-15 credit hours of honors coursework, whether honors designated courses or honors option of regular classes (at least 3 honors credits per academic year) – This usually translates to 1-2 honors classes per academic year, allowing honors to fit into most students' academic schedules.
• .5 credit HON 400 “Scholarly Exploration” – A course designed to help students understand the research process and to create their own honors project idea.
• .5 credit HON 410 “Honors Proposal” – A course to enable student creation of a formal proposal for an honors project that will be reviewed by a faculty committee for approval.
• 2-5 credit hours of HON 490 “Honors Project” – An independent course under a faculty mentor to launch and report on the student’s honors project. May be completed over the course of multiple semesters to allow students time to complete their honors projects well.
• Earn an overall GPA of 3.3 or higher.

To maintain membership in the Honors College, students must take at least three honors credits (and preferably six) per academic year or request permission for a special exemption from the chair of the Honors College for this requirement.

Honors Designated Courses Offered on a Rotational Basis

Honors designated courses fulfill the requirement of the 12-15 hours expected of honors students; many of these courses also meet requirements for the general education curriculum so that students do not have to take “extra” honors courses outside their normal curriculum.

Students can look through the Honors Curriculum Guide provided below to see the list of course options available to choose from within the Honors curriculum.

Honors Option courses

Honors College students with at least 30 earned credit hours with a GPA of 3.3 or higher may elect to take selected class(es) for Honors Option credit. Honors Options of regular courses affords students the opportunity to develop original work that explores innovative connections, the synthesis of ideas, in-depth analysis or creative expression beyond that offered in a standard course. Generally, Honors Option is reserved for classes within the candidate’s major or minor area of study.

After registering for the course, the student consults with her/his course professor to develop the Honors Option proposal and then submits the application to the Director of Honors College and obtains the prerequisite consent of the Honors College Committee. The form can be found on the Honors Student Association ACE website. No more than 6 credit hours of Honors Option coursework may be used to fulfill the 18 Honors credit hour requirement to graduate “with distinction,” and candidates must earn a grade of 3.0 or above in their Honors Option course(s).

Honors project