The TU Honors Program engages intellectually curious students in a lively and sustained conversation about the great ideas of the past and how they influence the present. As an Honors student, you will engage deeply with great thinkers who have come before us. Together, we will read their works not so much for the answers they give us, but for the questions they provoke. The goal is not just to study, but to join the centuries-old conversation about what makes for a meaningful and well-lived life.
Through lively discussions and portfolio reflections, you will cultivate your curiosity about the ideas we’ve inherited, the habits we’ve adopted and the conventions and institutions that shape our lives. This will help to empower you to live deliberately rather than habitually.
Honors students also hone skills so that they may thoroughly investigate their intellectual interests. Among those skills are the ability to engage others — in writing and conversation — thoughtfully and generously; the ability to judge for oneself the merits and liabilities of one’s own best thinking; and the ability to imagine the consequences of that thinking.
Because Honors seminars can be used to fulfill both general curriculum and elective requirements, the Honors Program is compatible with any major offered at TU.
Students who complete both the Honors core curriculum and an Honors plan earn the “Honors Scholar” designation on their transcript and wear an Honors medallion at commencement.
Opportunities and benefits
Honors students will:
- Cultivate the ability to think across disciplines and to make connections among them
- Develop intellectual camaraderie with fellow students and faculty
- Find their own voices by investigating pressing questions
- Shift from strategic learning to deep learning
- Take ownership of their education
- Benefit from the guidance of an Honors mentor
- Graduate with a bibliography and an intellectual autobiography of their college studies
Living Learning Community
University Honors, hosted in Hardesty Hall and campus apartments, complements students’ studies while in the TU Honors Program. It creates a home for the life of the mind and the deep friendships students forge as they read great thinkers together in order to better understand themselves and the world in which they live. Just as Honors seminars are designed to engage students in honest and rigorous conversations about what it means to be human and how to live well, this LLC extends those inquiries to illuminate everyday life. It creates space for students to explore and share how their studies and research broaden their perspective, unsettle habits, present new possibilities and, in general, simply blow their minds.
Students living in the University Honors Living Learning Community in Hardesty Hall during 2023-2024 will be charged the Housing Tier 1 rate.
Highlights include book clubs and reading groups, dinners with professors, movie nights and cultural outings, architectural tours and workshops to help students get started in their research and colloquia to share works-in-progress.
Students can apply for the Honors Living Learning Community when they submit the housing application. Space is limited.