Drury’s honors program is designed to provide rigorous and innovative courses to intellectually ambitious students. Honors courses enhance the interdisciplinary character of Drury’s Engaging Our World curriculum as well as a student’s major field of study. In addition, the honors senior colloquium and research project allows students to pursue in-depth study in an area of their own design, with the support of Drury faculty.
Requirements for the Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree with Honors
In order for a student who has been admitted the Drury University Honors Program to graduate with a bachelor’s or master’s degree with honors, the student must satisfactorily complete the following:
Students can apply up to 6 credit hours of transferred honors course-work.
Requirements for the Bachelors or Masters degree with Honors – Four-Year Track
In order for a student who has been admitted the Drury University Honors Program to graduate with a bachelor’s or master’s degree with honors, the student must satisfactorily complete the following:
Students can apply up to 6 credit hours of transferred honors coursework.
Requirements for the Bachelors or Masters Degree with Honors – Accelerated Honors Program
For IB Diploma students and students transferring 30 or more credits to Drury University and who has been admitted the Drury University Honors Program to graduate with a bachelor’s or master’s degree with honors, the student must satisfactorily complete the following:
Students can apply up to 6 credit hours of transferred honors coursework.
Honors students entering Drury Fall 2016 or later will need to complete an approved Honors Portfolio as part of the honors degree. The Honors Portfolio has two purposes. First, it allows a student to document and highlight the good work they have accomplished through the program and provides a record of achievement. Second, the portfolios enable the honors faculty to review the quality of the Honors Program.
Students will use their portfolios to document how they met the learning objectives and graduation requirements of the Honors Program. The Honors Portfolio is introduced during the HNRS 205 Freshmen Honors Seminar and honors students are expected to update them throughout an honors student’s time at Drury. The final version of the portfolio, which documents a student’s honors project, will be submitted as part HNRS 410 Honors Portfolio and must be approved by the Honors Council. This course is taken during a student’s last semester.
The final Honors Portfolio must include:
The Honors Program encourages students to “document early and often,” saving assignments and projects from every semester. Honors students should also document attendance on Honors Program and Honors Student Association events. We also encourage students to include any significant learning or growth experience in their portfolio, even if doesn’t occur in an “honors” course. For example, many students will include study abroad, internship, and work experiences in their honors portfolios. In most instances, students will be creating electronic portfolios as websites. Students wishing to create a hard copy portfolio should speak with the Honors Director before proceeding.
The Honors Program reviews a student’s Honors Portfolio each year to evaluate a student’s progress in the program.
Here are some sample portfolios of current and recently graduated students to get a sense of what a portfolio can look like:
These students (and the rest of the honors students) will continue updating their portfolios throughout their time at Drury. Check back in later semesters to see what our students are up to!
Honors students who have completed a semester at Drury can transform a “regular” Drury class into an honors course thought the Honors Option Contract.
Download Honors Option Contract
The Honors Option Contract allows honors students to take a non-honors class for honors credit. Students who add an honors option to a class must design a research or creative project under the direction of that class’s instructor. Thus the option challenges students to become independent researchers in a manner that is not always possible in a regular class setting. Students who complete honors option contracts are expected to present their work at an Honors Symposium Day.
Students who want to add an honors option to a class should ideally get in touch with the instructor before the start of the semester, but definitely no later than the end of the first week of class. The student should suggest an idea for a project or ask the instructor for ideas. In either case, the instructor may need to lend some guidance in arriving at a workable proposal. Listed below are examples of the kind of work that might be suitable for an honors option.
A student who wants to add an honors option to a class should do the following:
Honors students must maintain a Drury GPA of 3.6 or higher, make regular progress toward their honors degree by taking a minimum of one honors class an academic year once they have been formally admitted into the program and meeting the co-curricular requirements. If they do not maintain these requirements, they may be placed on honors probation or dismissed from the program.
