Honors Program

The Honors Program exists to enhance learning and to challenge a select number of students academically, socially, and culturally. The program creates opportunities for personal growth in understanding oneself and others and allows participants a chance to be leaders in the Barton community of learners.

Program Details

Both the First Year Honors Seminar and the Second Year Honors Seminar are problem-based courses focusing on real world issues that honors students assist in choosing. The Nature of Inquiry sophomore course introduces students to the ways different disciplines interpret our experiences. In the junior year, honors students designate a course within their major as an honors capstone course. One other course also must be taken as an honors course. This course may be in the student’s major, or it may be an international travel course. Both upper-level honors courses require each honors student, and the professor teaching the course, to choose an appropriate project that will result in either significant research or a noteworthy contribution to other students in the class. These projects must be approved by the Honors Council.

Honors students must meet the academic requirements of the Honors Program as well as the requirements within their chosen major. Students must maintain a 3.25 grade-point average to remain in the Honors Program.

In addition to the academic requirements, students are also expected to become leaders in and out of the classroom. Honors students are encouraged to attend campus social and cultural events, e.g., plays, lectures, and art exhibitions, and to later discuss these experiences with professors and other students. Honors students should also actively participate in decisions concerning the choice of political, social, and intellectual topics to be addressed in seminars or in other Honors meetings.

Questions?

For more information, contact Dr. Susan Bane, director of the Honors Program, by phone at 252-399-6514 or by email at smbane@barton.edu.