Honors
Director
Dr. James Freeman
Program Mission
The Honors Program fosters a community of active, life-long learners who will become adept at functioning in a complex, increasingly interconnected world. This is accomplished through small, specialized, and interdisciplinary seminars that take the place of General Education courses across the Bodies of Knowledge and the completion of a senior capstone project. The Program strengthens its students intellectually by challenging them academically, encouraging their curiosity, and honing their research, writing, critical thinking and speaking skills. Honors students are also expected to demonstrate the key Franciscan values of care of creation, compassion, humility, and service to others by engaging in service and academic opportunities outside of the classroom. The Honors Program prepares students in all majors to be engaged, dynamic, and thoughtful citizens who will carry those values into their careers, continued education, and communities.
Goals and Objectives
Program Goals
The Honors Program aims to:
- Provide interdisciplinary General Education courses that are specialized, challenging, and innovative in their approach.
- Offer students academic experiences, hands-on learning, and service and scholarly opportunities both within and beyond the classroom and campus.
- Guide students in research methods and mentor them in capstone projects.
- Encourage students to present their work within and beyond St. Francis College.
- Foster a lifelong passion for learning, service, and commitment to community.
Program Objectives
Students who complete the Honors Program will be able to:
- Write and speak authoritatively about scholarly issues in a range of disciplines.
- Design and execute an independent yearlong project that results in a scholarly thesis, creative project, or service initiative.
- Identify and pursue opportunities for service in and outside the college.
- Organize and participate in learning opportunities outside of the classroom and college.
- Demonstrate the value of wide-ranging liberal arts knowledge in their chosen career fields and graduate programs.
The Honors Program provides students the opportunity to fulfil their General Education Bodies of Knowledge requirements through small, interdisciplinary, discussion-based seminars that address a range of specialized topics.. The Program requires the student to complete nine three-credit Honors courses, beginning with a year-long freshman seminar and ending in a year-long senior capstone. The freshman seminars are focused around a timely theme chosen by the Honors Council and meet the First Year College writing and speaking proficiencies. In their sophomore and junior years, students take five Honors seminars that each map to two Bodies of Knowledge. Through their distribution of Honors seminars, students are expected to take two classes that count in each Body of Knowledge. These five seminars take the place of the ten Bodies of Knowledge courses required of non-Honors students, allowing Honors students the flexibility to take more advanced liberal arts courses, double major, or minor.
Independent research and self-motivated study are combined in sophomore- and junior-year Honors seminars. Brief essays, oral presentations, and longer research projects form the basis for grades in the seminars. Formal testing is neither used, nor permitted. Field trips, as well as experiential and service learning, are encouraged components of Honors courses.
The Honors Program culminates with an Honors capstone project. Students select a topic and identify a faculty mentor who will guide them in conducting scholarly research and writing, creative work and reflection, or designing and implementing a service initiative. The topic and type of capstone project is chosen by the individual Honors student and requires the student to engage in in-depth research and writing, with the length of the final product dependent upon the type of project undertaken. Students present their projects at an annual Honors Symposium and are encouraged to submit to external Honors conferences and publications as well. Each thesis is carefully monitored by the mentor and is critically examined by a second faculty reader as well as a designated member of the Honors Council. Students must earn a B or better in their first semester to advance to the second semester of the capstone. Students who earn an A or A- on their final capstone project will graduate with High Honors, and students who earn a B or B+ on their capstone project will graduate with Honors. Any student who passes with below a B on their thesis project will earn credit but will not graduate with Honors.
Honors students are also expected to attend and/or participate in cultural and social activities at the College. These activities can include guest lectures, club membership, and other events. As an essential facet of the Franciscan mission of both the program and the college, Honors students are also required to complete a minimum of ten hours of community service per academic year. Students identify their own service opportunities and report their hours to the Honors Director.
Honors students have priority registration and are eligible to register for courses on the first day of registration. In addition, Honors students benefit from exclusive academic and social events, unique opportunities to travel and attend conferences, publish their work, and work closely with individual faculty on research projects.
Membership in the Honors program is limited. Qualified prospective freshmen are invited to apply to the program on the basis of their high school grade point averages, and are admitted on the basis of writing samples and interviews. Transfer students and rising sophomores who demonstrate academic talent and interest in the Honors Program may also be invited to apply by a process similar to that used for incoming freshmen. Once in the Program, Honors students are required to maintain at least a 3.50 grade point average and show progress toward meeting their Honors course requirements. Students who do not maintain those standards risk removal from the program and must work with the Honors Director to maintain their place in Honors. Honors students entering as freshman must complete 27 Honors credits; Honors students beginning as sophomores must complete 21 Honors credits.
All students interested in additional information about the Honors program should contact the Director.
Program Requirements
| Code | Title | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| HON-5101 | Honors Freshman Seminar | 3 |
| HON-5102 | Honors Freshman Seminar | 3 |
| Select FIVE Honors courses 1 | 15 | |
| HON-5997 | Honors Thesis | 3 |
| HON-5998 | Honors Thesis II | 3 |
| Total Hours | 27 | |
- 1
Honors courses are identified by course numbers 5000 through 5998 or by the notation of Honors (or “HON”) in the course title. Students interested in completing the Honors curriculum are encouraged to meet with the Honors Director regularly for assistance in identifying appropriate courses and planning their academic programs, regardless of major.