Honors Program

​The purpose of the Adrian College Honors Program is to provide students who are both talented and motivated with the chance to challenge themselves intellectually.

The program provides:

  • Experiential learning
  • Intellectually challenging, cross-disciplinary seminars
  • Enhanced academic opportunities in your major areas of interest
  • Additional benefits like early registration each semester, transcript and diploma notations, recognition in the commencement program

Entry Requirements

  • 25 ACT and 3.6 HS GPA for incoming freshmen; 3.5 GPA for current AC students.
  • Completion of a formal written application

For more information on the application, please contact either your admissions counselor or Dr. David Bartley, Honors Program Director.

Honors Program Requirements

  • Three (3) credits of Honors Colloquia (Honors 101 and 201)
  • Honors 301 (Advanced Colloquium) OR Honors 290 (Pre-Professional Scholar)
  • Four (4) Honors Options courses (Honors 499)
  • Off campus experience (Study Abroad or Professional Internship)
  • Maintenance of a 3.5 GPA

Honors Program Curriculum

The Adrian College mission statement emphasizes truth, human dignity, excellence and justice. These ideals form the basis for the Honors Program curriculum. Please see the program requirements and course descriptions below.

Honors Colloquia (3 hours)

HONR 101Honors Colloquium (1)
HONR 201Reacting to the Past (1)

As well as one additional hour of HONR 101 or 201.

Advanced Scholarship (1-4 hours)

HONR 390Pre-Professional Scholar (2-4)
or HONR 301Advanced Colloquium (1)

Pre-Approved Off Campus Experience (Study Abroad or Professional Internship)

Off Campus Experiences (3 or 4)

Four Honors Options Courses

HONR 499Honors Option (0)

Maintenance of a 3.5 GPA

Honors 101 Honors Colloquium

This seminar combines academic and experiential learning and emphasizes academic excellence and respect for human dignity. Students read and write about an essential social practice or institution, such as religion or art. Then they experience it first-hand, either through a trip to Chicago or through a service learning project in Adrian or elsewhere.

Honors 201 Reacting to the Past.

Students participate in Reacting to the Past games. They are assigned roles as historical characters and immersed in a significant moment in history. The games chosen deal with the one of the key concepts in our mission statement: truth, human dignity, justice. For example, in the Darwin game, students become British gentlemen in 1862 debating the merits of Charles Darwin’s scientific achievements. Students must grapple with different kinds of truth and explore inductive and deductive reasoning.

Honors 390 Pre-Professional Experience

This class allows students to achieve professional excellence by providing them with the opportunity to work one-on-one with a professor on a scholarly activity, culminating in a presentation.

Honors 301 Advanced Colloquium

The advanced colloquium is a small, seminar style class that draws on readings from the great books of western and non-western civilization as well as more recent work. It allows students to consider some of the big questions raised by the key concepts of our mission statement such as “What is Justice?” and “What is Truth?”

Honors 499

The Honors Option (Honors 499) enables students to complete extra projects within existing upper level courses, thus allowing them to strive for professional and scholarly excellence.