Honors Program

The CBU Honors Program is a community of thinkers who actively seek wisdom and virtue together as we research, discuss, and debate the fundamental questions of life. Honors students take advanced, discussion driven seminars, that are designed to be interdisciplinary, and interactive, to allow students to see connections between academic disciplines, and build connections with one another. The Honors Program is a university wide academic program which students take in conjunction with their declared majors and minors. The majority of the seminars taken by honors students also meet university general education requirements.

Mission and Learning Outcomes

The CBU Honors Program exists to pursue wisdom and virtue in community. The goal of this pursuit is to foster and mold thinkers, leaders, and citizens, who will go into the world as agents of healing, who demonstrate the character of Christ, and act to influence, and promote, human and societal flourishing.

To accomplish this mission, the ten courses of CBU’s Honors Program are structured around the following six learning outcomes:

1. Wisdom: Honors students will demonstrate social and mental habits indicative of sound judgment.
2. Virtue: Honors students will cultivate a virtuous life which embodies Christ’s command to love God and love the neighbor.
3. Community: Honors students will appreciate the need for, and be equipped to nurture, healthy communal relationships.
4. Human Flourishing: Honors students will act to promote human flourishing on both the individual, and the societal level.
5. Theology: Honors students will understand the manner in which a person’s theological foundation establishes the way in which they inhabit the world.
6. Change: Honors students will develop strategies to create organizational and cultural change in society.  

Benefits of the Honors Program

In addition to taking seminars focused on cultivating an interdisciplinary community of thinkers, Honors students also receive the following benefits:

1. Completion of the Honors Program will be noted on their transcript, giving them an edge entering graduate schools, and/or the workforce
   
2. Completion of all 30 units of the Honors Program also fulfills the requirements for a minor in philosophy, a major/minor that business and organizations are currently actively looking for in prospective candidates 
   
3. Honors students are able to take upper division courses in their second semester Freshman year
   
4. Access to Honors events, trips, and talks
   
5. Honors exclusive scholarship opportunities (launching in the near future)

Honors Program Curriculum

The CBU Honors curriculum consists of ten seminars. These courses are interdisciplinary and discussion driven. They build off each other, and intentionally reference each other, to provide a holistic understanding of how academic disciplines connect. These course also, in large part, meet CBU general education requirements, and also may meet requirements for various majors and minors throughout the university. Currently, the Honors Program seminars will meet 27 units of GE requirements.  

Honors students will take the following ten seminars:

Lower Division 

Admission to the Honors Program requires a separate application after having been admitted to CBU. Admission to the Honors Program is generally restricted to students with high school GPAs of at least 3.5, but promising students with a GPA of at least 3.0 will be considered as well.

Application Review Schedule

The CBU Honors Program does not having an official application deadline. Instead, applications are considered as they come in, and as space is available. That said, it is in the student’s best interest to submit their application sooner rather than later in order to secure their place in the program. Applications are reviewed at the following intervals during the Spring and Summer for the coming Fall semester.

Application