Location: Honors House
Telephone: 859-572-5400
Fax: 859-572-6091
Web Address: http://honors.nku.edu
Email Address honors@nku.edu
Interim Director: Belle Zembrodt
Other Key Personnel:
Coordinator of Advising: David Kime
Coordinator of Admissions and Events: Brittany Smith
Full-Time Faculty: April Callis, Ali Godel, Kristin Hornsby, Rachel Zlatkin
Thinking about the program: The NKU honors program is a supportive, nurturing, and challenging academic community for highly motivated and intellectually curious students. The honors program specifically promotes cross-disciplinary reasoning, exchange of ideas, trans-disciplinary applications, and project creation and management.
Honors education involves ongoing interaction with peers and instructors in a dynamic environment where the individual student voice is important, where all members of a class learn from one another, and where each student can locate and explore his or her personal passion in relation to a given topic. Above all else, the honors program is an environment that consistently promotes academic excellence.
The honors program serves students from all of NKU’s undergraduate colleges and academic departments and actively works with the colleges and academic departments to enable any student, regardless of major, to finish the honors program. Coordinated advising between honors and academic departments facilitates a smooth curricular flow for all honors students.
The 21-credit-hour program includes 15 credits of coursework, as well as a 6-credit independent project known as a capstone, completed under the direction of an NKU faculty member chosen by the student in consultation with the honors program.
Students who complete the honors program earn the distinction of University Honors Scholar on their diploma and transcript. This distinction counts as a secondary area in graduation requirements.
Special opportunities for our students: The honors program encourages students to think across discipline-specific boundaries, to envision and articulate connections between disciplines that may not seem to be readily connected, to see applications of their studies beyond the university to a larger global community, and to imagine innovative solutions. The learning outcomes of honors courses include demonstration of superior communication skills, both in writing and speaking, analysis, synthesis, and critical thinking. The capstone project is the exit requirement for the honors program and affords students the opportunity to engage in independent research or creative work, an undertaking particularly valued by potential employers, graduate schools, and professional schools and programs. Similarly, the designation University Honors Scholar on the diploma and transcript is a distinction that provides students with a competitive edge.
The honors program supports co-curricular activities that include activities to promote civic engagement, global perspectives, and leadership experiences. The honors program awards scholarship money to students in the program to support travel experiences of various kinds, including trips that are part of honors courses, study-abroad endeavors undertaken as part of an academic major, travel related to conferences, and capstone expenses.
Special admission requirements: NKU’s honors program is open to incoming freshmen, continuing NKU students, and transfer students. Prospective students should apply by visiting the honors website (http://honors.nku.edu) and completing the honors application form.
Note: The honors application is separate from the NKU application for admission.
The Honors College Admissions Committee considers several aspects of a first-year applicant’s record when making admissions decision. The following are target admissions criteria:
- Strength of the required essay (minimum score of 4 in rubric scale of 1-5)
- Completion of a rigorous course of study (college preparatory curriculum may include honors, AP, and dual enrollment courses)
- High school GPA (minimum 3.50 unweighted high school GPA or 4.00 weighted high school GPA)
- Results of standardized test (minimum ACT score of 27 or equivalent SAT critical reading and math scores)
- Involvement in extracurricular activities and a record of leadership and service (minimum score of 3 in rubric scale of 1-5)
The Honors College Admissions Committee considers several aspects of a currently enrolled or transfer applicant’s record when making admissions decision:
- Strength of the required essay (minimum score of 4 in rubric scale of 1-5)
- Earned minimum GPA of 3.25 in collegiate coursework
- Involvement in extracurricular activities (minimum score of 3 in rubric scale of 1-5)
You should also know: To remain active within the honors program students must maintain a 3.25 overall GPA (including all early-admit and transfer courses) and also enroll in one honors course at least every other semester. Students who do not complete one honors course within two semesters will lose honors status. Students will be considered on probation in the honors program if their GPA drops below a 3.25. Students will lose honors status if their GPA remains below a 3.25 for two consecutive semesters. Students may reapply to the honors program once their GPA is again at 3.25 or above. Honors students are required to meet with an honors program academic advisor the first year in the program and are encouraged to meet with an honors advisor every semester.
Program Description: To complete the Honors program (minor), students must complete 21 credit hours of honors coursework: HNR 101, four honors seminars, and two HNR 400-level capstone project courses. All first-year honors students must take HNR 101 Introduction to Honors Learning (3 credits) . Although topics vary, this course develops skills essential to student participation in seminars and success in college. Students are introduced to the four domains of honors learning: cross-disciplinary reasoning, exchange of ideas, transdisciplinary application, and project creation and management.
Students then complete four honors seminars. (Up to two honors general education courses can count for two of these seminars.) The 300-level seminars are interdisciplinary in content and develop the skills necessary to synthesize information, propose a question, and develop the appropriate methodology to complete a meaningful project.
Categories of topics include*:
*Students may take only two courses with the same number.
Ultimately, the students work one-on-one with a professor to complete a capstone project in two HNR 400-level courses. This project reflects the culmination of the undergraduate academic experience. Students select a topic of their interest, develop the literature review, propose the methodology, and manage the timeline to present their findings at the Conference of Honors.
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