Honors Program

Honors students often serve as hosts for distinguished speakers who visit Westminster’s campus.  During the annual Hancock Symposium, for example, Honors students share lunch and conversation with astrophysicists, NASA project leaders, CRISPR researchers, poet laureates, music icons, professional athletes, famous humanitarians, and global political leaders. 

In a broader sense, the Honors Program is Westminster’s way to help personalize the curriculum as much as possible for ambitious students with any combination of majors, so that they are prepared to be competitive applicants for graduate schools, law schools, medical schools, and the workplace.  That means that Dr. LaVine works closely with each Honors student to help him/her find off-campus activities (like internships, studying abroad opportunities, or presenting work at an academic conference), and, eventually, to conduct independent research (all with an eye toward preparing students for the future they’d like after college).  Honors classes are places where people who are delighted by learning and ideas get to hang out and bounce those ideas off of each other, and over the years, many Honors students find their closest friends in these courses. 

In terms of course credits, the Honors Program is roughly equivalent to an academic minor. Honors students take one Honors class each semester: a 1-credit mini course in the fall and a related 3-credit seminar in the spring.  The fall class is designed to get students ready for the more intensive spring experience, and we hold social activities, meetings with visiting speakers, and other "extra" activities throughout the school year.

While project specifics differ according to a student’s goals and academic discipline, here are a few examples from recent graduates:

• Madison Rybak (Biochemistry) conducted genetics research on mouse bones with a member of the Biology faculty, and won a Davis Foundation “Projects for Peace” grant to bring menstrual health kits to Tanzania. She is in medical school.
• Mustafe Elmi (Transnational Studies) studied abroad in Bremen, Germany and used his Honors thesis on Muslim communities in Europe to gain admission to Cambridge University, where he earned a Master’s degree in Economics.
• Melissa Rolseth (History, Political Science) interned in Washington D.C. and used her Honors thesis on the Tulsa uprising to successfully apply to Vanderbilt Law School.

Here again is a small snapshot of all that our Honors students have gone on to achieve:

• Lorena Gaona Greenwood (Economics, French, International Business) used her Honors thesis and study abroad experience at the London School of Economics to earn an M.A. in Economics from the Université Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne.
• Suravi Shrestha (Environmental Science) earned a Master’s in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She went on to work as a  Research Consultant at NASA.
• Paige Harris (Biochemistry) used her Honors thesis research to successfully apply for Chiropractic school. She received her DC (Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine) degree from Logan University in 2020.
• Tyler Haulotte (Philosophy, English) used his Honors thesis on Hegel to earn admission to multiple graduate programs in Continental Philosophy. He earned an MA in Philosophy from U of New Mexico and won admission to a PhD program in Philosophy at Purdue University.
• Ayush Manandhar (Transnational Studies) used his Honors thesis as a writing sample to successfully apply for several graduate programs in Public Policy. He completed an MA in Public Policy at Georgetown University and works as a speech writer and policy advisor at the Nepali Embassy in Washington DC.
• Erin Perry (Religious Studies) used her senior thesis work to earn a job as a Communications and Development Associate at Lutheran Volunteer Corps. She went on to pursue a Master’s of Divinity degree at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
• Joseph Opoku (Transnational Studies) used his Honors thesis and multiple conference presentations to find a job as a S.-Africa Business Center Fellow at U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. He won a Schwartzman Scholarship to study Business in Beijing.
• Courtney Whitlock (Biochemistry) wrote an Honors thesis on optometry’s role in concussion protocols, and earned a scholarship to attend the Southern College of Optometry in Memphis.

Abby Beach (Biochemistry) earned a Bryant Scholarship and early admission to medical school at the University of Missouri.

If you are a curious scholar who loves investigating an interesting idea regardless of the discipline from which it emerges; if you are eager to challenge yourself as fully as possible throughout your college career; if you feel an ethical responsibility to give back when you receive special opportunities; and if you are looking for a small, supportive, tightly-knit peer group with whom to navigate college, then you are almost certainly a wonderful fit for the Honors Program!