Honors Program

The Bluefield University Honors Program offers students the opportunity to engage in exclusive, specially focused, and academically-rigorous classes and seminars.

Personal Growth Through Academic Challenge

The Honors Program offers students a challenging academic experience, opportunities for travel to meet other honors students across the country, and the means to expand their horizons. The program features an interdisciplinary seminar that integrates different areas of knowledge and culminates in a significant research project. Innovative courses lead to lively discussions that hone students’ analytical thinking, writing, and research skills.

As students move through their time at BU, they develop a strong bond with fellow honors program students. They may also choose to become active in Alpha Chi, an international honor society, or by attending regional and national conferences. Students also have the opportunity to pursue honors-enhanced courses for a richer academic experience. These courses do more than require extra work. They provide active and creative learning that enhances the student’s depth of knowledge of the course’s content. Depending on the discipline, instructor, and course, the honors-enhanced course may also require that a student:

• Deliver an oral presentation or lecture to the class on a special topic or research effort.
• Submit a research paper or project to a scholarly organization for presentation or publication.
• Complete a special research project or laboratory experiment.
• Submit a term paper.
• Attend scheduled outside-of-class meetings with the course instructor to discuss course readings.
• Complete a community service project.

No matter what activities or additional assignments are required, these opportunities give students in-depth and hands-on learning. Ideally, the work completed in honors-enhanced classes connects to the larger projects they pursue, including their senior seminar project.

Whether you plan to enter graduate school or a profession, the honors program will help you develop superior skills in independent and creative thinking that can help make this world a better place. We invite you to learn more about our program by completing the online application below.