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Honors Program

Honors Program

  • EKU
  • Honors Program

Excel with Innovative Educational Experiences

EKU Honors makes innovative, hands-on, and thought-provoking classes and resources available to motivated and creative students who want an in-depth college classroom experience with a strong grounding in an interdisciplinary, liberal arts education.

Whatever your major, you’ll take advantage of our small, innovative classes that can replace some of your general education and university requirements. Before you graduate as an Honors Scholar, you’ll complete an honors thesis on a topic of your choice.

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Why Apply to the EKU Honors Program?

EKU Honors Students:

  • Examine new ideas across disciplinary boundaries
  • Explore opportunities for research and nationally competitive awards
  • Experience new ideas, communities, and cultures
  • Excel as a leader inside and outside of the classroom
  • Enhance their EKU experience through internships, co-ops, and other methods of increasing their employability after graduation
  • Engage with their campus community
Apply to the Honors Program

Live and learn with other honors students. Receive guidance and mentorship from a Resident Advisor (RA) who is also an honors student. Participate in programming and activities like cooking, crafts, gaming, and outdoor activities.

The student-elected and governed body that organizes service events and activities for all honors students.

Experience transformative, life-changing and fun studying in a country outside the United States. EKU Honors has several aways to financially assist your ability your ability to study abroad.

Each year, EKU Honors travels to several conferences. Students who have a proposal accepted for presentation at these conferences travel have the majority of their expenses covered by the EKU Honors program.

  • Kentucky Honors Roundtable
  • Southern Regional Honors Council (SRHC)
  • National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC)

EKU Honors provides grants to support student travel to the National Collegiate Honors Council’s Partners in the Park program. This is an outdoor experiential learning program at national parks across the country. EKU Honors students have participated in learning adventures at Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii, Glacier National Park in Montana, Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah and many more.

High-impact educational experiences outside of the traditional classroom designed to place students directly into the cultures and lifeways of the area they are studying. Students complete preliminary readings prior to travel, then participate in intensive course sessions, field studies and service-learning activities throughout a weeklong trip, tying course content to local context. Recent locations include New York City, Chicago and the South Carolina Lowcountry.

Honors Program Benefits

  • For the 2026-2027 Academic Year, in-state students accepted into EKU Honors receive the President’s Award regardless of GPA. Learn more.
  • Priority registration
  • Honors students have the option to live in the Honors Living Learning Community
  • Exploration of interdisciplinary topics, enhanced research, travel and service opportunities, and practical leadership experience
  • Dedicated faculty, small class sizes and unique course design
  • Grants, awards, and scholarships with special access to study abroad awards and mentorship assistance for nationally competitive grants and scholarships
  • A robust curriculum that helps develop professional skills and aptitudes to gain a competitive advantage
  • Use of the Honors Study Lounge
  • Extended library checkout privileges

EKU Honors Program Mission & Vision

Mission

EKU Honors cultivates personal and professional growth in a diverse and inclusive academic community. We emphasize curiosity, experiential learning, social responsibility, and leadership.

Vision

EKU Honors will provide innovative educational experiences in a vibrant community to enable students to excel in all that they do academically and professionally.

Curriculum & Enrollment

Students in the EKU Honors Program complete a program personalized to their specific major and educational goals based upon when they enter the program.

Student entering the program in their first semester of college:

  • Honors Maroon Minor
  • Requires 18-24 credit hours of honors coursework spread over the course of their EKU career.

Students entering the program after their first semester of college:

  • Honors Gold Minor
  • Requires 13-18 credit hours of honors coursework spread over the course of their EKU career.
EKU Academic Catalog

Please review the admissions requirements before applying for this or any program. If you have questions about the program or are planning to register for classes, please speak to the program advisor.

Honors students transferring to EKU in good standing from another honors program or college are automatically accepted into EKU Honors. Please email ekuhonors@eku.edu with the semester that you plan to begin at EKU and attach a copy of your unofficial college transcript. You should also have your honors program/college director or dean email ekuhonors@eku.edu stating that you are in good standing in your program or college.

All emails regarding automatic transfer must be received by EKU Honors prior to the first day of classes of the semester in which you plan to begin at EKU and begin in honors. Honors transfer credit allowance will be determined on a case-by-case basis by the Honors director. Typically, students may transfer up to six credits of honors coursework toward their EKU Honors coursework requirements.

Priority Deadline – November 10
Final Deadline – January 15

Admission to the EKU Honors program is competitive. Selection is based on careful consideration of all application materials including the online application and 3 short essays.

  • Apply to and be admitted to EKU
  • Complete the Online Application
  • Submit Your Essay Responses
  • Save your essay file with the answers to all 3 prompts as a PDF
  • Label the save PDF as: lastname_firstname_essays
  • The document should be double-spaced in 12-point font
  • Each response should be no more than 250 words

Essay Prompts:

  • Explain what motivates you to engage in the EKU community and how you hope to become a leader inside and outside the classroom during your time at EKU and beyond.
  • Use a specific example from your previous personal and/ore educational experiences to tell us how you are ready and eager to become part of a community of actively engaged students and faculty.
  • How do you see yourself contributing to the EKU Honors program, and what else would you like to tell us about yourself to help us get to know you better?

Essay Directions:

  • Use one document for all three essays
  • Enter all three prompts in one document
  • Under each prompt type the relevant essay
  • Each essays should be double-spaced in a
    12-point font and no more than 250 words

Connect with EKU Honors

Interested in the Honors Program?
Schedule a meeting with us to discuss any questions you might have.

Photo of Kevin Watts

Kevin Watts

EKU Honors Program

kevin.watts@eku.edu

Schedule an Appointment

Message from the Executive Director

Welcome! Whether traveling with your fellow students to a major US city for an honors conference or our annual “Honors Cultural Trip,” or sharing life-changing hands-on learning experiences with your fellow students in our innovative honors seminars, or forging lifelong friendships in our Honors Living and Learning Community and at our many social events, you’ll find in EKU Honors an extraordinarily welcoming and nurturing scholarly home.

As Executive Director of EKU Honors for more than a decade, I consider it my great privilege to share the honors learning journey with our fabulous community of students and faculty. We take great pride in our students’ leadership both in our program and across the EKU campus, and our students regularly win prestigious national awards and recognitions.

professional photo of David Coleman

We welcome students interested in learning more about becoming a part of this special learning community and prospective students who want to sit in on sample honors classes and/or talk with current honors students to learn more about life in EKU Honors. Contact us to schedule a campus visit.

All best,
Dr. David Coleman
Professor of History
Executive Director, EKU Honors

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Contact Information

Honors Program


University Building
Room 137

859-622-1403
ekuhonors@eku.edu

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