Inherent in our Honors Mission is a commitment to academic excellence and helping our students become critical thinkers for today's society. We foster close relationships between professor and student to encourage progress and to enrich collegiate expericences.

Each student must complete a Capstone thesis to graduate with Honors. A database of past theses projects is being created for student perusal. Every student takes multiple Capstone courses with our Director, Dr. Laursen, to create "building blocks" to pave the way toward readiness for completing their theses prior to graduation.  

Additionally, if there is a class that is not offered specifically as an Honors course, students have the ability to create a "Contract Class" in cooperation with professors. Agreements are reached between students and course professors, a contract is signed to determine an "in depth" project to be completed toward earning Honors credit. Sometimes students write papers, present posters or deliver oral presentations based on subjets related to class topics.

URSA, the University's new Undergraduate Research and Scholarly Activity Office exists to support students in developing research based projects much like the Capstone thesis.

It becomes increasingly important for our Honors students to monitor their own academic progress- both grades and Honors credits. To do this the University has established DegreeWorks within UAOnline. Much like Blackboard used for dispensing information on student enrolled classes, DegreeWorks is specific to the individual student. It is a campus-wide approach to sharing vital statistics in a secure fashion.