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In the case of top scholars, their means of discovery should not be limited by class schedules and curriculum requirements. At Union, many such students have been able to partner with the faculty to take learning to new levels within the Honors Program, an interdisciplinary opportunity open to students with demonstrated academic abilities. Although successful, Union’s Honors Program became the focus of some change in 2007, during the University’s accreditation reaffirmation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Candidate institutions are asked to design a Quality Enhancement Plan to strengthen an existing program. Union chose Honors. Associate Professor of English Scott Huelin became Director of the Honors Community when he joined the Union faculty from Valparaiso University in 2009. Huelin earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and leads the Honors Community in a two-stage approach. The first is General Honors, a stage Huelin said provides freshman and sophomore students with innovative, interdisciplinary, inquiry-based courses which are designed to tackle big questions of long-standing and contemporary relevance. “Best of all, you get small classes (maximum 15) composed of similarly bright and motivated students – classes led by some of the best teachers on
campus,” Huelin said. Students admitted to Union with at least a 3.5/4.0 grade point average and at least a 28 ACT score are invited to apply for the general honors stage. The second stage is Discipline-Specific Honors. Huelin describes this as an “opportunity to pursue high level, funded research in your major and under the direct supervision of a faculty mentor.” Students again apply for admission to this second stage, usually in the Fall semester of the junior year. They are required to attend at least four honors colloquia during their junior year and four more during their senior year, complete 12 hours of honors contract courses in the major, produce an honors project/thesis in their major and maintain a 3.5 GPA. “The students that we get now are so talented that we kind of have to revisit things with some frequency to make sure we’re providing them with adequate challenge,” said Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Gene Fant, who added that Professor of Philosophy Randall Bush built an excellent foundation for the program and the QEP. “We’re looking for ways to challenge students who don’t even understand the kind of potential they really have.”
Honors Program: Challenge Reveals Potential in Union’s Brightest Students
xploring the Christian intellectual tradition sometimes requires students and professors to design classes and schedules in non-traditional ways.