Honors Program
The Honors Program is devoted to intellectual excellence, exemplified by the creative interplay of teaching, learning, and scholarship. If you are curious and love to explore ideas, the Honors Program is for you! You’ll ask questions and seek answers relentlessly. Your classmates and professors will offer support and encouragement, and they’ll challenge you as well. You’ll be with like-minded students who pursue ideas and knowledge with passion and persistence.
Susquehanna’s Honors Program supports your commitment to discovery and achievement. Your faculty are dedicated to their teaching and to your success.
We select Honors students from the top 10% of the enrolling class academically from all majors. We expect that you will embrace the total Susquehanna experience by contributing as leaders, performers, athletes and community servants in addition to your intense academic commitments.
You'll follow a sequence of special courses and projects—complemented by discussion groups, lectures, off-campus visits and residential programs—throughout your four years at Susquehanna. You'll join faculty at special events and conferences sponsored by the National Collegiate Honors Council.
And first-year Honors students will live together in a living-learning community designed specifically for them within a first-year residence hall.
Faculty Lecture by Swarna Basu, Ph.D.
Faculty Lecture by Shari Jacobson, Ph.D.
Faculty Lecture by Martina Kolb, Ph.D.
Students typically enroll in one Honors course during each of their eight semesters at Susquehanna. All Honors courses satisfy specific combinations of central Curriculum requirements. Only Honors students may register for Honors courses.
During the first year, students must successfully complete HONS-100 Thought, which focuses on ideas and their expression, and one of the following: HONS-200 Thought and Civilization, an interdisciplinary look at literature and cultures; HONS-210 Thought and The Arts, which focuses on Western aesthetics; or HONS-230 Analytical Thought-Logic, a course that examines symbolic logic as the generative epistemology of the scientific method.
After their first year, students must successfully complete either HONS-240 Thought and Social Diversity or HONS-250 Thought and the Natural Sciences, which offer cross-disciplinary approaches. Sophomore Honors students also must successfully complete HONS-260 and HONS 261, the Sophomore Colloquium, in which they engage with an interdisciplinary view of a chosen theme and write a reflection-portfolio.
As juniors, students must successfully complete eight semester hours from a series of HONS-301 seminars that serve as especially interesting and challenging electives. The Honors Program culminates in the Honors Research Project, an experiential learning project that applies an interdisciplinary frame to a topic chosen by the student. The conclusion of the research project includes a public presentation, usually in a forum organized by the Honors Program.
These courses are often designed primarily for students in a departmental major, but have been opened to Honors students from any major.
Several 300-level Honors classes are normally offered each semester, and they rotate by semester. Students in the Honors program follow a curricular grid that is different from the Central Curriculum because they take specialized courses in critical thinking.
In the past two years, these courses were offered:
- History of American Medicine
- History of the Book
- Pan-Africanism
- Just War Theory
- Issues in Democracy
- Pennsylvania's Pasts & Publics
- Shakespeare
- Civil Liberties
- Human Physiology
- 20th Century Music and History
- International Organizations
- Diversity in American Politics
- Philosophy After the Holocaust
- Psycholinguistics
- Religious Fundamentalisms
- Medieval Myths and Narratives
- International Political Econ
- Luther: Life and Thought
- Awesome At Life
- Constitutional Law
- American Foreign Policy
- Violence, Terror and Race
- History of American Women's Health
- The Long Civil Rights Movement
- Family and Kinship
Department: Religious Studies
Associate Professor of Religious Studies
duperon@susqu.edu
570-372-4741
Department: English & Creative Writing
Associate Professor of English
hubbell@susqu.edu
570-372-4203
Department: Langs., Lits. & Cultures
Associate Professor of German
kolb@susqu.edu
570-372-4712
Department: English & Creative Writing
Assistant Professor of English
langh@susqu.edu
570-372-4658
Department: Religious Studies
Professor of Religious Studies
jmann@susqu.edu
570-372-4165
Department: History
Associate Professor of History
munozm@susqu.edu
570-372-4734
Department: Political Science
Assistant Professor of Political Science
peterson@susqu.edu
570-372-4170
Department: English & Creative Writing
Associate Professor of English & Creative Writing
robertson@susqu.edu
570-372-4630
Department: Political Science
Associate Professor of Political Science
lopez@susqu.edu
570-372-4179
Department: Philosophy
Professor of Philosophy
zoller@susqu.edu
570-372-4163
Department: School of Arts and Sciences
Degenstein Professor of Leadership
mcmillin@susqu.edu
570-372-4004
We offer preferential housing in a traditional residence hall to students who are admitted into and choose to join the Honors program.
In that space, you'll participate in a series of events—including films, speakers and panels—aimed at fostering intellectual curiosity, discussions and chances to learn outside the classroom.
With input from Honors instructors and the Honors council (made up of Honors students who represent the community), we'll select the topics and events throughout the academic year.
Contact Us
Phone & Email
Marcos Krieger
570-372-4292
kriegerm@susqu.edu