The Honors Program at Marshall University is not just a collection of courses. Students work closely with faculty in a small class setting in a way that enables them to become directly involved in their own education. A variety of enriched academic opportunities supplements the curriculum: lectures, field work, and course-related travel. Nor is the program all work. The Center for Academic Excellence offers a comfortable meeting place for friendship and talk. Informal social events, such as this student-faculty ball game above, also create an encouraging, supportive community of students.

Academics | Peer Mentoring |Elizabeth G. Drinko Honors Convocation | MUHSA | Honors News

ACADEMICS

• Admission Requirements

• The Program

• Honors Option

• Readings for Honors

Admission Requirements
Students may begin Honors work at any stage in their college careers, although many begin as freshmen. Entering freshmen with an ACT composite of 26 (or SAT equivalent) and a 3.3 GPA are eligible to enroll in any Honors course. Transfer students or already enrolled students with a minimum 3.3 GPA are eligible to enroll in any Honors course.

Students who have been at Marshall for more than one semester should go to the Center for Academic Excellence (Old Main 230) to apply for admission.

The Program
The Honors Program consists of three separate but interconnected components:

1. HON 101: Introduction to Honors: This is an enriched, Honors section of the New Student Seminar for freshmen. This one credit course meets for the first eight weeks of the semester. It offers Honors students a chance to meet others like themselves, to become familiar with the Honors Program, and to learn through small group discussion about college life and about planning their academic futures.
    

2. Interdisciplinary Seminars: Each semester University Honors provides several team-taught, small, interdisciplinary seminars for freshmen and upper class students. Led by two or more professors from different disciplines, the 4 credit seminars enable students to study in depth a special topic outside and beyond the regular curriculum. Past seminars have covered such areas as War in the Twentieth Century, Primatology and Human Evolution, America in the Sixties, and Plagues and Epidemics. Seminar titles appear in the official schedule of courses which is published each semester.
   
   HON 150: Critical Issues
   HON 195: Science and the Arts
   HON 196: American Experience
   HON 197: Ideas in Social Science
   HON 294: Interdisciplinary Honors
   HON 295: Interdisciplinary Honors
   HON 296: Interdisciplinary Honors
   HON 395-396: Interdisciplinary Honors
   HON 480-483: Interdisciplinary Honors
   
   NOTE: Students can use Honors Seminar credits to fulfill department major or college general education requirements. Required forms are available in the CAE.
    

In addition to University Honors seminars, individual departments offer Honors enriched versions of regular courses. While the prerequisites for department Honors courses vary, they normally require at least a 3.0 GPA. The prerequisites for these courses are stated in each department’s course listing in the MU Undergraduate Catalog.

CHM 190-191H: Honors in Chemistry
CHM 290-291H: Honors in Chemistry
CMM 104H: Honors in Speech Communication
ENG 201H: English Composition Honors
HST 103H: The Twentieth Century World-Honors
MTH 121H:  Concepts and Applications of Mathematics
MTH 130H:  College Algebra
MTH 229H:  Calculus and Analytical Geometry I
 

Honors Option 
The Honors Option allows an Honors student (3.3 GPA) enrolled in a regular
course to make it an Honors course and to receive Honors credit. The student
and instructor, in advance of the semester in which the course is offered, arrange to do a part of the work of the course as Honors caliber. H-option instructions and forms are available in the CAE and below.  
Honors Option application form

Readings for Honors
Many departments also offer individualized programs of study for Honors credit called Readings for Honors.  These are identified in the department course listing in the MU Undergraduate Catalog.

PEER MENTORING HON 201
Peer mentoring is a special program designed to bring together current Honors students with new students entering the program. Peer mentors attend all HON 101: Introduction to Honors class sessions, teach one full class period, and meet with students at least once during the semester outside the classroom environment.  Peer mentors help provide a supportive environment for incoming students who use Honors 101 to begin learning how to negotiate their way through their college experience. Peer Mentoring can be a wonderful experience.  Mentors serve as a resource for information, a role model, and a friend. Application

ELIZABETH GIBSON DRINKO HONORS CONVOCATION
The annual Elizabeth Gibson Drinko Honors Convocation, held in the Spring of each year, recognizes outstanding Honors students and faculty. The keynote speaker is a noted public figure in American life. John Deaver Drinko began funding the convocation in 1994 to help acknowledge his wife's interest in honors education. Recent Convocation speakers include journalist David Halberstam, actress Jane Alexander, former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, and renowned bioconservationist E. O. Wilson.

MUHSA
The Marshall University Honors Students Association is an organization of active Honors students who meet regularly to discuss ways in which to improve the Honors Program. Students also meet informally to raise money, eat pizza, and watch movies when the stress of university life gets too intense. The organization has two seats on the University Honors Council, a faculty committee that governs the Honors Program.

HONORS NEWS
Honors News is an entirely student written and student produced publication which appears twice each semester. The newsletter reports on Honors Program events ("What's It Like" lecture series, Honors Convocation), organizations (Peer Mentoring, John Marshall Advisory Board, MUHSA, honors classes, and student activities and achievements.