Honors students who enter the program as freshmen are expected to take HONR 1757 in both the fall and spring semesters of their first year. This course substitutes for ENGL 1010 and 1020, satisfying Area I of the AUM Core Curriculum. Freshman honors students who have already met this requirement when they enroll at AUM may use HONR 1757 to satisfy Area II or Area IV requirements instead.

Students may substitute HONR 1957, HONR 2757, or HONR 3757 for courses that satisfy Area II or Area IV requirements in the AUM Core Curriculum.

Departmental honors courses (e.g., BIOL 1017, COMM 1017, PHIL 2007, etc.) may also be used to satisfy AUM Core Curriculum requirements. Honors students should register for honors versions of core courses whenever possible.

The cornerstone of the University Honors Program is its unique curriculum. Students who enter the program as freshmen take an honors seminar each semester through the spring of their junior year. These seminars are normally team-taught interdisciplinary courses that emphasize discussion and challenge students to think critically and creatively about the material they are studying. The details of each course may change from one semester to another, but the general contours of the seminar sequence remain stable:

Challenges students to consider the idea of the heroic, especially as it pertains to their own lives and to the time they will spend at AUM. Special emphasis is placed on the nature and value of education and the question “what does it mean to be an educated person?” Readings may include The Apology of Socrates, 1984, or Brave New World.

Uses a diverse set of readings from the humanities and sciences to encourage students to think through what it means to be a human being, in the broadest sense of the phrase.

Issues to be discussed may include the nature of law, controversial social issues, or any other aspect of the challenges posed by our desire to live in society with our fellow human beings. This course may employ Plato’s famous treatise on the well-ordered society, The Republic.

Much of what we believe, from the mundane to the cosmically significant, is based on considerations not immediately accessible by our senses: memories, the testimony of others, logical inferences, etc. This course asks students to consider the details, merits, and implications of some of these beliefs. A possible text is Charles Darwin’s on the Origin of Species.

The theme of this course, and the readings that are required, is determined entirely by the professors who teach the course (with approval from the Honors Committee). It must include a substantive research project, preferably with the opportunity for students to connect their research to their major field of study. The goal is to prepare students for the honors thesis projects they will complete in Year 4.

This course focuses on the nature of leadership and the cultivation of leadership skills, in whatever domain(s) the faculty teaching the course choose to emphasize. Students work in teams to design a proposal for a substantive service project in which other Honors students may participate.

Honors students also take a one-credit hour, pass/fail course known as the honors colloquium.

Other options for honors students at AUM include departmental honors courses (e.g., BIOL 1017, COMM 1017, PHIL 2007, etc.), special topics courses (HONR 1997, 2997, 3997, and 4997; these can be taken as general electives), and honors by contract courses, in which a student designs a project that supplements normal course requirements and enables the student to earn honors credit for a regular AUM course.

The highest honors conferred by the UHP are University Honors. To qualify, you must accomplish the following:

Students who graduate with University Honors wear orange and white honor cords and the UHP medallion at commencement, and have the distinction noted on their diplomas.

Honors students may graduate from AUM with Warhawk Honors, in either of the following ways:

Students must earn a grade of “B” or better in each course in order for it to count toward the Warhawk Honors semester hours requirement, and must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.4 or higher in order to graduate from the UHP.

Warhawk Honors graduates wear orange and white honor cords at commencement.