The Westminster College Honors Program

"The Honors program gives students a special opportunity to excel. It is one of the main features that attracted me to Westminster. The program has given me a challenge that was worth the work. Many Honors students come to college already having completed many of their gen ed courses. I was one of them, having over 46 credit hours upon application. If you want an excellent liberal education, Honors is for you."
-Dr. Eric Glissmeyer, Honors Degree grad & Medical Resident, Boston Children's Hospital

What if your classes were designed around the concept of helping you practice the habit of thinking? Of helping you develop an authentic writer's voice, so that your words have "the feel of you about them," as Irish poet Seamus Heaney once remarked? Of helping you challenge yourself to such a degree that you learn things about yourself that you didn't know existed? If these questions appeal to you, then you've come to the right place.

The Westminster College Honors program offers a distinctive course of study for academically and intellectually prepared students who want more out of their college experience. While the core of the program is the specially-designed, 7-course seminar sequence, which replaces the college-wide Liberal Education (LE) experience, Honors at Westminster consists of other enriched opportunities like leadership training, mentoring and funding for research, meetings with visiting speakers, writing awards, a scholarship resource library, and access to unique study abroad opportunities, among others. Most importantly, Honors students feel a sense of shared purpose and community that grows out of the distinctive learning environment.

The team-taught, interdisciplinary seminars encourage active learning, personalized attention, and critical thinking. The curriculum is designed to help students discover their own voices as thinkers, speakers, and writers. The program also offers a range of upper-level classes that cover topics beyond the 7-course seminar sequence.

Because Honors students take many of their courses together and participate in a range of activities outside of class, they feel an especially strong connection to the program and the college. The program is housed in historic Nunemaker Place, located on the banks of Emigration Creek by the residence halls. This three-story building gives Honors students a place to research graduate schools, write papers on networked computers, attend social events and meetings, or use Nunemaker porch for reading, relaxing, or just hanging out with friends.  Nunemaker is fully equipped with classroom space, a scholarship library, a wireless signal, and video presentation capabilities with a six-foot screen.