| |
Mar 05, 2026
|
|
|
|
|
2026-2027 Undergraduate Bulletin
Honors Curriculum
|
|
The Honors Program invites students to join a centuries-old conversation about what makes for a meaningful and well-lived life. Through course readings and seminar discussions, Honors students work to articulate their own richly informed answers to those big questions at the heart of human existence. As they investigate the perennial questions and big ideas that thinkers have tackled across time and cultures, Honors students cultivate those excellent habits of mind and character that are necessary for success in life, no matter what career path or vocation they choose to pursue.
Because Honors seminars can be used to fulfill general education requirements or as elective credit, the Honors Program is compatible with any major offered by the University. Students should consult their home college’s regulations concerning the fulfillment of Block requirements to ensure that they respect all policies in their home college
|
Learning Objectives
Students who successfully complete their program in the Honors College will: - Be able to clearly and thoughtfully articulate their own understanding of what makes for a meaningful and well-lived life, expressing their ideas and questions by drawing on some of the foundational texts that inform, illuminate, provoke, or challenge their understanding of themselves and the world.
- Become exceptional in the arts of communication, both oral and written. Students will not only develop excellent habits of mind; they will also develop excellent habits of interpersonal communication so that they can clearly express their ideas and values to others, especially those who may strongly disagree with them. Students will learn to navigate spaces of civil and thoughtful disagreement about the good life and society.
- Examine, discuss, and write about foundational texts in a manner that reflects deep, sustained, and serious reflection upon them. Students will become more thoughtful, self-aware, and intellectually and ethically responsible about matters of existential import to humanity. Students will be able to give persuasive reasons in support of their interpretation of texts and be able to construct and defend valid arguments in support of an ethical or political position.
Honors Core (15 hours)
Honors students take one Honors seminar each semester for four semesters. In each seminar, students trace the development of our collective understanding of what makes for a good human being and citizen. The Honors courses are sequenced so that students read and assess past thinkers in their own right, as well as consider how subsequent thinkers use, abuse, enlist, and/or reject thinkers who came before them. Honors professors encourage students to think hard about difficult ideas, to ask unsettling questions, to defend what they say with good reasons, and to write well. By engaging great thinkers who have come before us in this way, Honors students come to better understand themselves and the world in which we live. Honors Courses (15 hours)
Students must complete 15 elective hours of coursework at the 3000-level or higher, with a least one course represented from the following, broadly construed disciplines: History (including Art History and Music History), Philosophy (including Religion and Political Science), and Literature (including English, Comparative Lit, and Foreign Languages). Provided the topic is different, HON 3003 may be repeated for additional credit toward any of these disciplines. All other courses can be taken in any combination. *Other courses may be approved at the discretion of the dean’s office. Contact
If you have questions about the Honors Program, please contact Dr. Blaine Greteman, Dean of the Honors College, at honors@utulsa.edu. |
|
|
