Honors Program

The Honors Program at Western offers high-achieving students unique academic and personal benefits, including small, discussion-based classes, opportunities for independent research, and priority course registration. Students can also access dedicated Honors housing and facilities, participate in service learning and study abroad, and earn special recognition at graduation.

This program provides the best of a liberal arts education by providing students with the opportunity to become autonomous learners within a highly supportive and collaborative academic community. Students are encouraged and challenged to free themselves from not only external constraints on the acquisition of knowledge and understanding, but also from internal limitations that can prevent critical thinking, reflective analysis, and responsible choice. The Honors program welcomes a diversity of perspectives and fosters the intentional practice of civil discourse, enabling students to develop the capacity for informed analysis and responsible evaluation and a willingness to submit discoveries and conclusions to an academic community of their peers and mentors to be mutually investigated and critiqued.