What is the CAS Honors Program?

The Honors Program in the College of Arts and Sciences is designed to serve our most academically talented freshman and sophomore students--those students most likely to be candidates for departmental honors and distinction programs later on.

The College Honors Program provides students with the kind of curricular enrichment that will keep them challenged in their first two years of study. We aim to equip students early on with the skills and knowledge that they'll need in their concentrations and to provide our students with early contact with key faculty. Further, we provide a sense of academic community with other students like themselves.

The CAS Honors Program is not affiliated with Independent Work for Distinction programs (i.e. departmental honors programs); however, the College Honors Program provides students with early advising about IWFD, which is undertaken in a student's last two semesters in CAS.

As a pathway through the General Education curriculum in CAS, the Honors Program is quite straightforward. Ours is not a college within a college that separates its students from their classmates. Instead, the CAS Honors Program experience is fully integrated into the College's general freshman and sophomore curriculum.

Academic departments in the four divisions of the College of Arts and Sciences offer one or more courses each semester, which are available to students invited into the Honors Program. During their first two years, College Honors students take a total of 4 of these Honors courses, one per semester. These courses are small, and they are taught by some of our best faculty. Honors Program course sections also teach approaches and skills ordinarily taught at more advanced levels.

The Honors Program is fully compatible with all CAS courses of study--with distribution by elective or through the Core Curriculum--and with all pre-major and pre-professional paths. That means that while College Honors courses are restricted to select students, these students are, in all other respects, like any other students. We think our General Education program is excellent, and we have no reason to segregate any of our students from it.

College Honors students also have special events and resources available to them. Throughout the academic year, the Honors Program provides its students with a rich variety of activities, including trips to plays, concerts, special exhibits at museums, and other events that enable students to advantage of the rich resources of Boston University, the city of Boston, and the New England area.

In addition to informal faculty talks, the Honors Program also provides students with roundtable discussions and information sessions on a number of topics of interest to students including research opportunities at Boston University and finding internships.

Peer Mentors provide first-year students with opportunities to receive guidance from fellow Honors Program students regarding academic concentrations, pre-medical/pre-professional issues, as well as related matters such as research opportunities. Peer Mentors include both current Honors Program Program students as well those who have completed the Program.

The Honors Program also provides special lectures for its students during the academic year, including an Annual Lecture open to the Boston University community. In 2008, the Honors Program hosted a two-day visit by Dr. Pamela S. Soltis, Phi Beta Kappa Society Visiting Scholar. As part of her visit, Dr. Soltis delivered a lecture for Boston University entitled “Solving Darwin's Abominable Mystery: The Origin and Diversification of Flowering Plants." Read more about the lecture and Dr. Soltis on BU Today.

Dr. Vishakha Desai, President and CEO of Asia Society, delivered the 2008-2009 Annual Lecture, "Future of Culture in the Age of Commerce: China and India". Previous Honors Program Annual Lectures have been given by Louise Glück, former Poet Laureate of the United States and current BU faculty member, as well as Dr. Steven Pinker, Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. Niall Ferguson, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, gave the 2007 Annual Lecture, which was sponsored by the Neu Family.

Honors Program students have their own Honors Program publication, Nuntius, a Student Association, which helps select and organize the Program's events, and a Chamber Music Society. The Honors Program also offers two specialty houses where students can live together in a congenial academic atmosphere.

Finally, our Program enables College Honors students to get to know other students like themselves and to devise ways to get the most out of Boston University from their first semester here. For participating faculty, the Honors Program allows early acquaintance with the students most likely to be strong concentrators later on.