Honors Program

The Honors Program at the University of Mount Union offers integrated learning opportunities and challenges for motivated students with exceptional academic potential. The program is designed to foster intellectual curiosity, leadership, initiative, creativity, civic-mindedness, and a high standard of performance.

Professors in Mount Union’s Honors Program are innovative teachers and dedicated scholars who come from a variety of disciplines. The University Honors curriculum parallels the Integrative Core with specially designed honors sections and exciting co-curricular opportunities. Honors courses emphasize intellectual contexts, student autonomy and connections among fields of study. The Honors Program is a learning community for students that provides academic and social support to engage in a different kind of learning, encouraging open inquiry, empathetic engagement with diverse perspectives, and space for intellectual risk-taking.

Honors Program Benefits

In addition to an excellent academic program, the Honors Program offers a variety of excellent social, cultural, and service opportunities, such as:

Invitations to cultural and social events on and off campus
Mentoring
Participation in the honors student organization
Service opportunities
Conference travel
Priority registration
Overload tuition waivers

Two honors tracks are available – University Honors and Honors in the Major. A qualified student may participate in both tracks.

University Honors

The University Honors track is a learning community for students that provides academic and social support to engage in a different kind of learning, encouraging open inquiry, empathetic engagement with diverse perspectives, and safe spaces for intellectual risk-taking. The curriculum parallels the Integrative Core with specially designed honors sections and exciting co-curricular opportunities. Professors in the Honors Program are innovative teachers and dedicated scholars who come from a variety of disciplines. Honors courses emphasize intellectual contexts, student autonomy, and connections among fields of study.

Curriculum

First Year Seminar (FYS) (first year): FYS focuses on a specific topic and develops skills in writing, oral communication and critical thinking.

Honors Foundations (first and second years): These courses focus on four major areas of human knowledge – humanities, natural sciences, social sciences and arts, building on the skills students learned in FYS. Students are required to take Honors Foundations in three of the areas and may fulfill the fourth area with an appropriate elective.

Theme and Theme Project (third year): Students take an honors course related to the theme of Engaging Diversity, in which they develop a proposal for a diversity project to be completed in conjunction with a course of their choosing the following semester.

Capstone (fourth year): Students engage in collaborative work around a complex issue with real-world application. They draw upon knowledge, skills and thought processes acquired throughout their educational experience.

Honors in the Major

The Honors in the Major track offers the opportunity for intensive, individual study in a major. Although the nature of honors work will vary, it should involve intellectual creativity and may take such forms as research, investigation, or artistic effort. The student initiates and plans the honors project and works closely with one or more faculty members in carrying it out. At the conclusion of the study, superior accomplishment should be demonstrated in some appropriate way. Depending on the department’s specifications, students will complete either an honors thesis or honors projects in three courses in the major.

Curriculum

494 Honors Thesis/Project: A research/project course designed to meet the needs of the individual student seeking honors in the major at graduation. Prerequisites: junior or senior standing, and approval of the instructor, the department chair and the Honors Review Board. Credit variable, 4-8 Semester Hours.

For more information contact the Honors Program directors at honors@mountunion.edu.

Latin Honors

Latin Honors are based on Mount Union grade point average, which includes study abroad coursework and transient, not transfer, credit as approved by Mount Union. Undergraduate students must earn at least 60 hours from Mount Union to be eligible for Latin Honors at graduation.

Cum laude– to students with grade point averages in the range 3.550 through 3.749
Magna cum laude– to students with grade point averages in the range 3.750 through 3.899
Summa cum laude– to students with grade point averages in the range above 3.899

Mount Union Honors Program Mission and Goals

The mission of the Honors Program at Mount Union is to create a community within the liberal arts tradition in which academically talented and highly motivated students enjoy an enhanced educational experience that supports outstanding scholarship, personal growth and creativity. In keeping with the Latin base of honos, or public office, the Honors Program emphasizes social responsibility and civic virtues.

The goals of the Honors Program are to:

Offer a challenging, innovative and accelerated Honors curriculum
Prepare students for educational experiences which may follow graduation
Create a supportive learning community of advisors and peers
Provide opportunities for students to develop civic leadership skills

Honors Program Community

An engaging community is an integral part of Mount Union’s Honors Program. Students in the Honors Program spend a lot of time together in the classroom as they complete their curriculum requirements, but the Program also seeks to create a welcoming and engaging community beyond the classroom. The Program accomplishes this through several ways, including:

University Honors Orientation - An event at the start of the academic year that allows students to arrive on campus early and develop relationships with fellow Honors students and professors through various social and intellectual activities.
Honors Advocates - Honors Advocates serve as a support network for incoming first-year Honors students. Advocates assist with Honors Orientation and serve as mentors to their assigned first-year Honors students throughout the fall semester. Students apply to be Advocates during the spring semester of the previous year.
Student housing - Housing opportunities that enable students to live near fellow Honors students in residence halls. With sufficient student interest, Honors students may also choose to live together in an Honors Learning Community (theme house).
Honors Council - An Honors student organization that affords students the opportunity to provide leadership in curricular and co-curricular aspects of the Honors Program. Through events and activities, the Council presents students with the chance to make connections with peers across the program. Council members are elected and take responsibility for various aspects of programming, activities, and information about the Program. All Honors students are invited to participate in social, cultural and service events carried out by the Council.
Service opportunities - Through both the Honors Council and Honors classes, students are presented with the chance to volunteer and make a difference in the community.

Honors Student Organization

The Honors student organization, the Honors Council, affords students the opportunity to provide leadership in curricular and co-curricular aspects of the Honors Program. Through events and activities, the Council presents students with the chance to make connections with peers across the program.

Leadership

Council members are elected and take responsibility for various aspects of programming, activities and information, including but not limited to:

Planning social and service events and opportunities
Representing Honors students to the faculty Honors Subcommittee
Communicating information about national and regional honors conferences
Addressing additional needs and interests as determined by the Council

Participation

All Honors students are invited to participate in social, cultural and service events carried out by the Council. In the past, such events have included trips to museums, meals with Honors professors, movie nights and making cards for residents of assisted living facilities.