The Honors Program

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The Honors Program at Lakeland College 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.

Graduates of the Honors Program will 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 first semester of Lakeland coursework, 3.25 GPA, and written recommendation of Lakeland faculty

Note:

The Honors Committee reserves the right to remove a student from the program for inadequate academic performance.

Honors Program Requirements

Students completing the Honors Program are also responsible for the 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.

HON 190 - Introduction to Honors (6 semester hours)
HON 290 - Revolutions in Thought
HON 370 - Honors Seminars a minimum of two (3 semester hours + 3 semester hours)
HON 400 - Directed Reading (1 semester hour) a minimum of two (1 semester hour + 1 semester hour)
HON 410 - Developing an Original Project (WI) (1 semester hour)
HON 480 - Senior Honors Project (WI)

One of the following:

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 (6 semester hours)	GEN 130 – Core I: Knowing the Self GEN 110 – Composition I: Academic Writing GEN 112 – Composition II: Argumentation and Research
HON 370 – Honors Seminars – a minimum of two (2) three (3) semester hour courses	GEN 310/311/312/325/345/355/365 – Core II
Completion of all other Honors Program requirements	GEN 425/426/442/443/445 – Core III