Mar 28, 2024  
2019-2020 Traditional Undergraduate Academic Catalog 
    
2019-2020 Traditional Undergraduate Academic Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

The Honors Program


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The Honors Program at Lakeland University is designed for intellectually curious students who desire to pursue academic activity in the company of other committed undergraduates. It emphasizes original and critical thinking in both its students and its teachers, asking that they participate fully in conversations that cross disciplinary boundaries. By means of small classes, challenging topics, and access to cultural events, it calls on students to take more responsibility for their education, developing and pursuing their own intellectual inquiries both inside and outside the classroom. Emphasizing clarity in oral and written communication and logic in thought, the Honors Program helps its students advance in their capacity to arrive at, have confidence in, and clearly support their own conclusions and views. It cultivates a sense of community, presenting academic work as a group process and a conversation among peers. Finally, it broadens the cultural horizons of its students, providing access to events and materials that may have otherwise been unavailable.

Students who have successfully completed the Honors Program from Lakeland University should be able to:

  • Exhibit creative/original thinking
  • Converse across disciplines
  • Argue persuasively, fluently, and clearly, in speech and in writing
  • Demonstrate mastery of and passion for an area of scholarly inquiry
  • Think critically

With these qualities in place, graduates should have the capacity to become innovators, on campus and in their future lives.

The Honors Admissions Process


Potential Honors students will be invited to complete a program application. Entering freshmen will initially be identified by their high school GPA and test scores, but students may also apply during their first year of coursework at Lakeland. Thus, the requisite criteria for entry are as follows:

  • Completion of program application
  • If applying upon entry to Lakeland, 3.25 GPA or better in high school or from transfer institutions; or 24 or higher for composite ACT
  • If applying after Lakeland coursework with 30 credits or less, 3.25 GPA, and written recommendation of Lakeland faculty
  • If applying after more than 30 credits have been earned, at Lakeland or transferring institutions, students should seek consent of the Honors Coordinator for admission to the program
  • All students enrolled in the Honors Program must complete all 15-credits included in the requirements listed below

Note:


The Honors Committee reserves the right to remove a student from the program for inadequate academic performance. Inadequate academic performance consists of two semesters with the student’s term grade-point average below 3.25.

Honors Program Requirements


Students completing the Honors Program are also responsible for the Rhetorical Skills requirement, Quantitative Skills requirement, the distributional studies component of the Interdisciplinary Studies curriculum, and at least three credits of writing-intensive coursework in a major program.

Additional Honors Program Information


Students who participate in the Honors Program but do not complete all of its requirements will still receive credit toward the Interdisciplinary Studies Critical Thinking Core Sequence and Rhetorical Skills requirements for the work they have completed in the Honors Program. The following chart relates how certain courses in the Honors sequence substitute for Interdisciplinary Studies requirements in the event of partial or non-completion of the Honors Program. Completion of Honors Program requirements in the left column below substitute for completion of Interdisciplinary Studies courses in the right column below.

Honors Program Interdisciplinary Studies

HON 190 - Introduction to Honors  

GEN 130 - Core I: Foundations of Critical Thinking  

HON 370 /HON 371  – Honors Seminars – a minimum of one (1) 3 semester hour course

GEN 310 /311 /312 /325 /345 /355 /365 /370  – Core II

Completion of all other Honors Program requirements
 

GEN 425 /426 /427 /442 /443 /445 /446 /447  – Core III

 

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