Why Honors?

What Makes the Honors College Community Stand Apart?

Curious. Exploring. Questioning. The Honors College is a place where students are highly motivated, perpetually learning, and inquisitive. Here, we ask questions that allow us to engage with our world in meaningful ways.

Enhance your College Experience

From your first semester, you'll be involved in research about the world around you, hearing different perspectives from your peers, and getting personal attention from your instructors.

You'll also interact with people of diverse perspectives, interests, and life experiences. Our multidisciplinary curriculum will enhance your experience. 

Courses offer opportunities to pursue questions in depth in a multidisciplinary cohort, where you'll develop your ability to reason about evidence, to evaluate the many perspectives that might be brought to bear on a problem, and to engage with your communities. You will pursue research, civic engagement, and problem solving in your coursework and have a chance to undertake additional advanced research in the form of a thesis or applied research project.

Honors College students give back to the community by participating in service events.

Honors College students give back to the community by participating in service events.

Conduct Research as an Undergraduate

You'll research questions and issues that interest you from your first day: beginning in your first semester with Honors 110, Principles of Research and Inquiry, you'll select a topic and engage with scholarly research.

With the foundation you get in your coursework, you'll be prepared to apply for funded research opportunities

Learning to ask real questions, evaluate evidence, and think about how they might be seen from different perspectives in the Honors College will prepare you to conduct research at the highest level:

  • 38% of our students will present their scholarly work at a conference before they graduate
  • 44% will conduct research with a faculty mentor before they graduate
  • 68 students presented at the Virtual Celebrations of Student Scholarship (Spring and Summer 2020)

Engage with Your Community and World

In the Honors College, you'll take on real issues and make a difference in your community and world, both inside and outside of the classroom.

  • 100% of our students participate in a civic engagement course in our curriculum before they graduate.
  • 95 students worked with our nonprofit and business partners as part of their HNRS 261 or HNRS 361 courses during Fall 2019 and Spring 2020.
  • 51% of our students take on leadership or organizational roles in Registered Student Organizations, while 80% participate in these organizations. Even more are involved in unofficial student organizations and groups.
  • 28% of our students study abroad at least once