Honors Program Requirements Changes – Effective Fall 2016

The UMW Honors Program seeks to enable highly motivated students to have a broad liberal arts education with enriching academic experiences that may include multiple fields of study; allow students to complete major(s), minor(s), and/or pre-professional requirements,; and has rich honor cohort experiences,.With that in mind, the UMW Honors Program Committee has revised the program requirements, effective Fall 2016. The following changes are approved for the Honors Program Scholars:

  • Non-honors designated courses may NOT be contracted to fulfill Honors program requirements. Only courses formally designated as Honors will fulfill the requirements for the program.

Yearly Requirements

  • Maintain a 3.2 GPA
  • Successfully complete a minimum of 6 credits of honors program requirements per academic year until all of the program requirements are fulfilled
  • Complete an Honors co-curricular event per semester and submit a reflection paper about the event by the last day of the semester in which the event was attended
  • Maintain a portfolio of your Honors scholars work

Honors Program Requirements

Track A: Incoming First-Year Students – accepted through application from high school

  • Honors designated first-year seminar (FSEM HN) – 3 credits
  • Honors designated coursework – 9 credits beyond FSEM HN
  • Honors Service Learning – HONR 201 – 1 credit
  • Honors Program mentoring program and leadership requirement or the UMW Horizons program requirements
  • Project/Research Design Seminar – fulfilled with an approved discipline-specific course or an approved experience (requires approval by the Honors Program Committee)
  • A capstone research project – a minimum of 3 credits of independent study (491 or 492) completed during the last year of study at UMW, and presentation of the project at one of the two Honors Program Symposia
  • An Honors portfolio
  • Eight co-curricular events and summaries
  • The required 3.2 GPA

Track B: Current UMW Students or Transfer Students – accepted through application to the Honors Program Committee. Applications will be accepted each year in May. Students who have completed 36 or more credits beyond high school (including AP) are ineligible to apply. Students who completed the fall semester (their first semester) at UMW with at least a 3.2 GPA may be contacted and encouraged to consider enrolling in an HN designated course for the spring semester to prepare them for application in May of that academic year.

  • Honors designated coursework – 12 credits (couldcan include FSEM 100HN).
  • Honors Service Learning – HONR 201 – 1 credit
  • Honors Program mentoring program and leadership requirement or the UMW Horizons program requirements
  • Project/Research Design Seminar– fulfilled with an approved discipline-specific course or an approved experience (requires approval by the Honors Program Committee
  • A capstone research project – a minimum of 3 credits of independent study (491 or 492) completed during the last year of study at UMW and presentation of the project at one of the two Honors Program Symposia
  • An Honors portfolio
  • Eight co-curricular events and summaries
  • The required 3.2 GPA