Elizabethtown College Honors Program, Momentum, Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships
Honors
Overview
The Elizabethtown College Honors Program, established in 1999 and sponsored by The Hershey Company, reflects the College’s commitment to providing hand-crafted learning opportunities for its students. In the case of the Honors Program, the focus of this handcrafting is on students with excellent academic records, superior academic abilities, intellectual promise, and demonstrated initiative. Consistent with the mission of the College, the Honors Program seeks to promote high standards of scholarship, leadership, and service among those students selected for the program. Class size deliberately is kept small; no more than 15 students are enrolled in each course.
The opportunity to work closely with faculty mentors from the first year to the senior year is an explicit goal of everyone associated with the program. In order to foster even greater involvement between faculty scholars and Honors students, co-curricular activities are an integral part of the program. International travel is both encouraged and facilitated.
To facilitate such experiences, the Elizabethtown College Honors Program allows each qualified student to apply for an Academic Research Grant that can be used in support of these trips, to support senior thesis research, or graduate and professional exams such as the GRE, LSAT, or MCAT. In order to help foster a deeper sense of community, study rooms, a reserved lounge, and a computer lab are located in the Honors Center for Honors student use.
Honors Program students in good standing will have priority registration for each semester for which they are members of the Honors Program. Priority registration indicates that Honors Program students will have the opportunity to register before other students with the same class standing.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/honors.
Admissions Process
Admission to the Elizabethtown College Honors Program is competitive. The minimum standard for admission is a combined score of at least 1200 on the critical reading and math portions of the SAT (with no score below 550) or equivalent on another standardized test (TOEFL or ACT), a rank within the top 10 percent of the student’s high school graduating class, and review by the Honors Director acting on the recommendation of the Office of Admissions.
The preferred application deadline for the Honors Program is January 15, and the final application deadline is March 15. Notification is guaranteed by May 1. Students interested in the Honors Program are required to have an on-campus interview with an Admissions officer.
A limited number of students are accepted to the Honors Program during their sophomore year. These students must demonstrate excellence in their first-year courses, provide recommendations from at least two Elizabethtown professors, and have the concurrence of the Honors Director. Rising sophomores must apply by March 15 for consideration.
Participation Requirements
Students entering the Elizabethtown College Honors Program in their first academic year take an Honors First-Year Seminar, and usually an Honors Interdisciplinary Seminar focusing primarily on critical thinking and foundational skills. In the sophomore/junior years, Honors students take two additional Honors elective courses from the College’s Core Program or in majors, minors, or electives. The final capstone Honors experience is the completion of a Senior Honors Thesis. A total of 24 credits must be acquired in Honors courses in order to fulfill the requirements and graduate as a recognized Elizabethtown College Honors Scholar. In order to remain in good standing within the program, students must maintain a grade point average of 3.50 overall.
A list of Honors courses is available through the course descriptions tab of this Catalog. Define the search criterion as an “H” in the “Code” field or select a specific Honors “Type” shown in the drop-down menu. All Honors courses are noted on course schedules with an “H” at the beginning of the course code and “HNR” at the beginning of the title.
The Honors Program offers the following non-disciplinary courses:
HON 201 - HNR Elizabethtown History: Campus and Community (PHS 201)
HON 205 HNR Leadership Theory
The following disciplinary and interdisciplinary Honors courses are offered. Other Honors courses may be offered from time to time. See individual departments for course descriptions.
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* Fulfills Honors interdisciplinary course requirement.
For more information, contact the Dean of Curriculum and Honors, Dr. Brian Newsome.
Momentum
The Office of Academic Achievement and Engagement is home to the Momentum Program. In 2010, Elizabethtown College was awarded a grant from the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) through the Walmart Foundation’s Walmart College Success Awards program, to enhance the success of first-generation college students. With the grant, the College established the Momentum program with an interdisciplinary approach to introducing students to the liberal arts curriculum and helping them prepare for the academic expectations of college.
The program was called Momentum because the purpose is to help students build momentum toward their experience with fall orientation and college life. The program establishes a momentum, which students maintain throughout their time at the college. Momentum is designed to prepare students for college, assisting them in their effort to get the most from their education and become an integral part of the college community. The Momentum program is a stimulus for students to become energized about Elizabethtown College and to help them maintain this energy, motion, and activity throughout their college experience. The program has an emphasis on students meeting academic expectations and developing mentoring relationships with faculty, especially their faculty academic advisor. Momentum students are also supported by upper class student academic peer advisors known as the Kinesis—the energy behind a momentum. All four cohorts of the Momentum program are invited to join the Student Senate sponsored club the Momentum Society.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/programs/momentum.
Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships
The Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships program encourages high-achieving students to pursue nationally competitive scholarships best reflecting their academic interests and post-graduate aspirations. Competitive scholarships and fellowships awards are often substantial, and recipients and finalists are held in a high esteem by educational institutions and employers. Scholarships and fellowships can range from short-term summer courses to multi-year graduate programs throughout the world. The application process offers certain benefits in improved critical thinking, analytical writing, and oral presentation skills- all of which can be usefully applied in nearly any future pursuit. The Office of Prestigious Scholarships and Fellowships, located in the Honors Center, aims to demystify these opportunities and help students discern the most appropriate awards for which to apply. We introduce students to opportunities, resources, and plenty of practical advice to helping them put together a competitive application. Whatever questions they have about prestigious scholarships and fellowships, we are eager to help students explore the possibilities they represent and encourage them in the application process. From the initial inquiry, to the nomination and selection stage of a national competition, we work with students and alumni to prepare competitive applications.
For more information, please visit www.etown.edu/programs/fellowships.
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