Graduating with University Honors or Foundation Honors

Colleges and Universities A-Z Texas A&M University
1

<p>Do you have to be in University Honors Program to graduate with University Honors (or Foundation Honors) if you have fulfilled all the academic requirements? Is there anything required beyond the academic courses listed?</p>

2

<p>My D is in the Honors Program and she thinks the requirements have changed starting for the class of '16. I’m sure someone else will speak up, but she believes you have to be in the program. They have a lot of activities, like weekly meetings and a capstone project, so there is a lot more to the program than just the academics.</p>

3

<p>Actually he is in the class of '16, we had lots of time to kill at graduation ceremonies & we were looking at the awards section trying to figure this out. When I looked online, I only found a listing of honors courses needed. Any updated info. would be great. Thanks! </p>

4

<p>Thanks for the help Debbie7452, you now do have to be in honors since they will no longer be offering these awards. Finally found it <a href=“http://hurapps.tamu.edu/Honors/Graduation%20University%20Plans.html”>http://hurapps.tamu.edu/Honors/Graduation%20University%20Plans.html&lt;/a&gt; Oh well, made for good reading in the program!</p>

5

<p>Howdy AGmomx2!</p>

<p>Looks like you found your answer, but just to confirm: students who enrolled before Fall 2012 have the option to complete the Foundation Honors and/or University Honors distinctions (in or out of our program) or the Honors Fellows distinction. The only university-level distinction available for students who enrolled Fall 2012 or later is Honors Fellows.</p>

<p>If you’re interested, there were a number of factors that influenced this change. Among them were:

  1. the multiple distinctions were confusing for students, faculty, and other administrators around campus.
  2. the increasing number of students bringing credit into the university created pressure on a few specific courses (e.g. POLS 207) that were bottlenecks for students completing distinction requirements.
  3. there was a perception from graduating students that the distinctions were not rigorous enough.</p>

<p>So, the Honors Fellows distinction addresses these issues by having simpler, more flexible course distribution requirements, requiring that all credits for the distinction be earned at TAMU, requiring a capstone, and combining the breadth and depth of the former distinctions into a single one.</p>

<p>Hope this is helpful!</p>

<p>Best,</p>

<p>Jon Kotinek
Associate Director
TAMU Honors and Undergraduate Research</p>