Honors Program

Intensely curious, active learners will excel in our Honors Program, a challenging, individualized program for academically talented students.

About 10 percent of students from a variety of majors are invited to join the Honors Program. Honors students typically embrace the total Susquehanna experience, contributing in leadership, performance, musical and athletics.

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 have the chance join faculty at special events and conferences sponsored by the National Collegiate Honors Council.

First-year Honors students have the opportunity to elect to live together in a living-learning community designed specifically for them within a first-year residence hall.

We offer preferential housing in a traditional residence hall to students who are admitted into and choose to join the Honors program and who want be housed with other Honors students because of common interests and study habits.

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.

You have the option to select Honors housing on the Housing Placement Form provided after you make your enrollment deposit.

Curriculum. Students typically enroll in one Honors course during each of their eight semesters at Susquehanna. Students must earn a grade of C- or better in all Honors Program courses.

Students participating in the Honors Program must maintain an overall grade point average of 3.40 during each semester at Susquehanna. If a student earns any grade below a C- in any Honors-designated course, the student, at the discretion of the director, may be removed automatically from the Honors Program. The director of the program reviews students' GPAs at the end of each semester. If an Honors student's GPA falls below the 3.40 level, the student will receive a warning letter from the director of the program. After a second semester below a 3.40 level GPA, the student is dismissed from the program. Copies of the warning and dismissal will be on file with the registrar and the student's adviser.

During the first year, students enroll in HONS-100 Thought, which focuses on ideas and their expression, and HONS-200 Thought and Civilization, an interdisciplinary look at literature and cultures. In their sophomore year, students select either HONS-240 Thought and Social Diversity or HONS-250 Thought and the Natural Sciences, which offer cross-disciplinary approaches. Each of these courses satisfies requirements in the Central Curriculum. Sophomore Honors students also enroll in HONS-290 Sophomore Essay/Project, in which they write and present a position paper/science project/visual project on a self-designed topic. This experience offers students an opportunity to work one-on-one with faculty early in their undergraduate careers.

As juniors and seniors, students select eight semester hours from a series of 300-level Honors seminars that serve as especially interesting and challenging electives. As seniors, they enroll in HONS-400, the Honors Program capstone course.

The Faculty. Honors Program faculty, selected from many disciplines and departments, are committed to fostering a diverse and challenging intellectual community for the university

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: