Honors program prides itself on access to many

TO THE EDITOR:

In a recent column, (“No great ‘honor’ in Carolina program,” Oct. 5) Hannah Thurman noted that Carolina’s Honors Program is neither exclusive nor set apart from the rest of the University.

We’re proud of that fact; it’s the reason The Fiske Guide has praised the program as one of the nation’s best and most accessible.

In keeping with UNC’s core values, we put an emphasis on academic opportunities, not privileges.

Those opportunities include honors seminars that encourage students to stretch beyond their intellectual comfort zones; internship programs in Cape Town, New York, Shanghai, and Beijing; the Connected Learning Program, a living-learning community that helps students explore a passionate interest outside the classroom; honors study abroad in London and Rome; and a changing roster of field research seminars that have taken students to study such topics as rainforest ecology in the Amazon, human rights law in Rwanda, and astronomy in the Chilean Andes.

Thanks to the generosity of Carolina alumni, honors is funding 15 new faculty positions in the College of Arts and Sciences.

As those professors are hired, they’ll help us add more courses and individualized honors pathways that will count toward students’ major and minor fields of study. That’s a high priority for honors students, and we’re delighted to have new resources to address the need.

These opportunities — and more — are available to all UNC undergraduates who are eager and prepared for the challenge of honors work.

If that’s you, then check us out on the web: honors.unc.edu. We’d be pleased to have you join us.


James Leloudis
Associate Dean for Honors
College of Arts and Sciences