Honors Curriculum

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Learn, Serve, Lead

The Honors Program brings together curious students who strive for excellence and aspire to use their education and strengths to tackle the challenges of the 21st century. We empower students to address future challenges through research that prepares them for graduate education or leadership roles in their chosen fields.

Joining the Honors Program demonstrates a commitment to excellence, community engagement, civic responsibility, and social justice. You can personalize your experience based on your interests, guided by the principles that make Honors students unique:

  • A desire to excel academically
  • An interest in community service and research
  • The drive to become the best version of yourself

Our Honors courses focus on student engagement. You will have the opportunity to be an active learner, engage in undergraduate research, work closely with faculty in small discussion-based classes, and participate in service-learning projects and community service.

In addition to your Honors courses, you are encouraged to plan and participate in co-curricular activities with your peers in the Honors Program.

Curriculum & Requirements

Program Requirements

All Honors students must take the following CORE courses as part of the minimum Honors Core requirement. 

  • Honors 100 Eagle Flight (1 credit) introduces you to the Honors community in your first quarter.
  • Honors Experience courses (Honors 110, Honors 120, Honors 130) allow you to engage in undergraduate research, work with faculty in small discussion-based classes, and participate in service-learning projects and community service.

After fulfilling the minimum Honors Core requirement, students must take ONE Honors class per year. Students can study abroad or complete an internship to fulfill their yearly requirements.

You should take your Global Studies and Diversity graduation requirement courses in the Honors Program. Once you have completed your requirements, you can take Honors Enhancement classes within your major during your junior and senior years. 

Honors Minor

This minor allows students to fully participate in the Honors Program and complete their General Education requirements.

The Honors Minor is not a requirement for Honors students.

EWU students studying in the library.

What You'll Learn

The following information comes from the official EWU catalog, which outlines all degree requirements and serves as the guide to earning a degree. Courses are designed to provide a well-rounded and versatile degree, covering a wide range of subject areas.

Honors Minor

Grade Requirements: an overall GPA of ≥3.2.

Required Courses
Required Lower Division Honors Courses12
Required Upper Division Honors Courses10
Additional Honors Courses–consult with advisor10
Total Credits32

Honors Experience Courses

Fall 2025

This course takes a “big history” approach to the problem of relating objective empirical science to subjective religious experience. While some advocate conflict or independence, others advocate dialogue or integration. All four perspectives are given their due considering pre-modern, modern, and post-modern approaches.

Dr. Garry Kenney, Faculty in English/Religious Studies

 

Fall 2025

This course explores the theory and practice of leadership with a focus on creating positive social change through intentional
community engagement. Emphasizing an understanding of leadership as a collaborative process, students will learn about the
challenges and responsibilities of civic leadership, especially when facing complex social challenges. Through a partnership with
local organizations, students will participate in a project that addresses a community-defined issue. This experiential learning
component will allow students

Dr. Brian Davenport, Faculty in Organizational Leadership

Fall 2025

In this course, we will explore one of the fundamental “elements” of the ancient world: water. We will investigate its unique physical and chemical properties, interrogate the challenges of aquatic life, and explore local watersheds. Finally, we will tackle water availability challenges for human needs, both in the present and the future, considering the impacts of climate change and environmental justice issues.

Dr. Camille McNeely, Faculty in Biology

Winter 2026

Our world is changing at a frenzied pace and we daily face new physical, financial and technological challenges. These changes lead to uncertainty that causes many of us to feel anxious, stressed and even defeated. Fortunately, we still have access to ancient perspectives on how to be a just, heroic and decent human being that are as relevant as ever. Start your first year as an Eagle by learning some of the most useful wisdom handed down to us from ancient cultures from around the world about how to thrive, lead and create just communities amidst a chaotic world.

Dr. Terrance McMullan, Faculty in Philosophy

Winter 2026

This class addresses the place and use of “the body” in Western society and, particularly, within social movements. Students will learn to appreciate and analyze literature, art, and the role of each in shaping how various kinds of bodies and identities are understood and valued. Through the examination of paired texts, art, and social movements, students will examine how ideas about “the body” and particular kinds of bodies have developed.

Dr. Ryan Perry, Faculty in Disability Studies

As part of the Honors Program, students need to take an Honors Experience course in their first year.

EWU’s Honors Experience Seminars are designed to introduce you to concepts of civic engagement and social justice from a social science, arts & humanities, and natural science perspective.

The small class size (no more than 20 students) and discussion format will allow you to work closely with fellow Honors students and faculty members who are passionate about their chosen topics.

We offer courses in Fall, Winter, and Spring with a variety of subjects and faculty.

Honors Electives

HONS 126. MAKING SENSE OF THE COSMOS. 5 Credits.

Cross-listed: PHYS 126.
Pre-requisites: MTHD 104 or MTHD 106, with a grade ≥C, or equivalent math placement score.
Satisfies: a BACR for natural science.
Our modern scientific view of the cosmos is a material universe obeying the laws of physics. This class explores the origins this view, covering the history, philosophy, physics, and astronomy behind it. The development is traced from classical Greece through the medieval Islamic world and the European Scientific Revolution into our modern understanding. The nonlinear and messy nature of this process is stressed, and key scientific, philosophical, religious, and cultural influences are examined.

Catalog Listing

HONS 303. THE BODY IN ART. 5 Credits.

Cross-listed: GWSS 303, ART 314.
Pre-requisites: ENGL 201 and junior standing.
Satisfies: a university graduation requirement–diversity.
Many ideas about race, gender, and sexuality originate in representations of the body. This theme-based survey explores how figurative art has contributed, since prehistory, to shape today’s views. Emphasis in on applying contemporary issues, such as consent and identity, to the study of historical artworks. Includes class discussions and weekly writing assignments about art historical and critical texts that examine the production and perpetuation of cultural attitudes about the body.

Catalog Listing

HONS 340. RESEARCH METHODS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. 5 Credits.

Pre-requisites: ENGL 201.
Satisfies: a university graduation requirement–diversity.
Introduces interdisciplinary research methods for social change and invites students to interrogate the colonized nature of traditional modes of inquiry which proscribe particular regimes of truth. Students will explore their own epistemological assumptions, and use tools of inquiry and discovery to explore transformative approaches to scholarship. Students will examine multiple critical approaches to inquiry including auto-ethnography and ethnography, feminist and indigenous research methods.

Catalog Listing

HONS 350. ISSUES IN GLOBAL CULTURE. 5 Credits.

Pre-requisites: ENGL 201.
Satisfies: a university graduation requirement–global studies.
This course discusses current social issues and trends in regions outside of the U.S., with a special focus on cultural and religious identity, minority groups (especially coming from immigration), and power dynamics. The course will approach this topic through a study of cultural products such as art, texts, films, posters, and newspaper cartoons.

Catalog Listing

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To apply for the Honors Program, express your interest in the EWU application and write two short essays.

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