Honors Program
Scholarship, Initiative, Leadership
The Honors Program is designed to challenge and engage high-achieving students in study and co-curricular activities that foster their scholarship, initiative, and leadership.
Program
The Honors Program allows students to build community with other like-minded students, conduct in-depth study in areas of interest, and apply and communicate their new understandings in the form of original research, service projects, or a self-developed project. Students enrolled in the program:
- Complete a minimum of three self-selected, regularly offered courses as “Honors Courses” by writing additional papers, developing a related project, or meeting other terms as specified in a contract with the instructor of the courses.
- During their Junior year take HONR 300: Service Learning Project, in which you will develop and implement a service learning project in the community involving leadership and oral presentations.
- Complete one of two Senior Honors Seminars – HONR 400: Senior Honors Thesis or HONR 410: Senior Honors Exhibition.
- Under the supervision of a faculty member while enrolled in HONR 400 or HONR 410 during their Senior year, complete one of the following projects:
- Write an Honors Thesis on a topic of interest to be submitted to a regional or national conference.
- Develop one project/creative exhibit/presentation to be identified by the student in conjunction with his/her major advisor.
Benefits
Benefits resulting from participating in the Honors Program include:
- Honors students enjoy priority registration privileges.
- First Priority seating to major SNC events and Forums.
- Honors students have access to increased scholarship opportunities. (Possible preferential treatment current scholarships, for graduate school admission, graduate scholarships, application for jobs, higher pay, etc.)
- Transcripts and the graduation program reflect student status as Honors Program Students.
- Honors students may take upper division courses as lower division students with the instructor’s permission.
- Honors students enjoy extended library privileges.
- Being an Honors student enhances your ability to become the Valedictorian for your class (one of SNC’s highest possible honors!).
- Participate in Honors-students-only activities each semester (depends upon your interests – parties, field trips, etc.).
- Honors students with known interest and/or expertise in certain areas or topics may be invited to meet visiting scholars in the same discipline.
- Honors students are eligible to attend the regional Honors conferences, where they network with other Honors students from the western region. They also may submit work to Scribendi, the Western Regional Honors Conference publication.
Eligibility (initial and continuing)
Incoming students with a 3.5 GPA are eligible to apply. Once accepted, the student’s GPA must not fall beneath a 3.25 for two consecutive semesters. In order to graduate with Honors, the student’s SNC GPA must be at least 3.5.
Application Process
- On or before the end of the fifth week of the semester click here to fill out the online application after which Associate Provost Dan O'Bryan dobryan@sierranevada.edu will get back to you personally with additional information.
- Your email should include the following information:
- Your full name and SNC Student ID number (or your Social Security Number)
- Your GPA and the institution at which it was earned
- Your year in school this semester (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior)
- Your email address and your telephone number
- Which afternoons/evenings you are available for meetings, events, and parties
- A short paragraph telling us why you would like to become a part of the Honors Program
- All qualified students will be admitted to the Program.
For more information, please contact Dan O'Bryan.
