All Honors students must sign a "contract" with the option to pursue Foundation Curriculum Honors or University Honors and understand that you are required to live in the Honors / International Student Scholars residence hall during your freshmen year at East Carolina University.

The First Two Years: Foundation Curriculum Honors

In small sections (15-20) emphasizing discussion, some of the best ECU faculty teach honors classes which help you satisfy Foundation Curriculum requirements (English Composition, Sciences, Social Sciences, Math, Humanities, Fine Arts, and Health) and meet the prerequisites to your major. Freshmen and sophomores generally take two or three honors courses per semester in introductory courses in areas such as Accounting, American History, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, Composition, Electronic Information Processing, Geology, Health, The Holocaust, International Studies, Math, Medieval/Renaissance Studies, Nursing, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Religious Studies, Science Education, Sociology, Special Education, Statistics, Technology, Women's Studies and World History.

Whether you are an entering Freshman or a current ECU student, the University Honors Program is pleased to offer qualified students the opportunity to experience the academic challenge and recognition of being an Honors Student.

Incoming Freshmen who qualify for the program are invited to join the program when they apply to ECU with an unweighted high school GPA of 3.5 or better and a combined SAT of 1200 +/- or ACT score of 26-27+. They are required to live in the Honors/International Residence Hall for their first year and participate in Co-curricular programming. Incoming Freshmen who choose not to join the program upon initial invitation must wait until they have completed 24 semester hours at ECU before they will have the opportunity to join again.

Current ECU students are invited through OneStop when their ECU course grades show a 3.3 GPA or better and they have completed 24 semester hours of study as an ECU student. 

There are two distinctions you may earn with our program. Foundation Curriculum Honors and University Honors. To graduate with Foundation Curriculum Honors, you must complete 24 semester hours of Honors credit and maintain a 3.3 GPA. To graduate with University Honors, you must complete 30 semester hours of Honors credit, complete a Senior Honors Project and maintain a GPA of 3.5. Your final 6 semester hours of Honors credit are independent study courses in which you will be working on your Senior Project. To encourage student involvement and exploration through Honors-level coursework, students pursuing either Foundations Curriculum or University Honors will be required to complete at least nine semester hours of Honors credit through taking Honors Seminars (HNRS), or Honors sections of Foundations Curriculum courses (294 – 299), at least three of which as an HNRS seminar. The remainder of the required Honors credit hours may be fulfilled through Study Abroad, 5000-level courses or Honors by Contract. The appropriate distinction you earn is reflected on your transcript and your diploma.

You may earn Honors Credit in a variety of ways:

• Honors Seminars (HNRS in the course catalog)
• Honors Sections of regular classes (sections 294 – 299)
• Study Abroad (requires pre-approval from the Director of the Honors Program)
• 5000-level courses taken as an undergraduate
• Honors by Contract (initiated by the student, HxC requires pre-approval from the instructor of the class and activation through OneStop. Once grades are posted, final approval by the instructor is required in addition to an A or B for the class)

Only grades of A or B in these courses, sections or by contract will garner Honors Credit. Honors Seminars on fresh topics are offered each semester and fulfill the Writing Intensive (WI) requirement and Foundation Curriculum credit. Descriptions of these courses are available under Honors Seminars on the Honors General Information page.

The Senior Honors Project

If you have completed 24 semester hours in honors courses or in courses taken as HxC with grades of A or B (the grade C does not count) and have an overall GPA of 3.5 or better, then you are eligible to do a senior honors project and graduate with University Honors.

During your junior year or senior year, you will sign up for 6 semester hours (independent study, special topics seminar, or a research course) and complete an honors project as a capstone experience. The project is mentored by a faculty member in your major or minor, and is summarized in a public presentation before the honors student body and faculty. Your imagination is the only limitation on the possibilities. We suggest four options:

• Senior Thesis: After a semester of directed research, you write an in-depth analysis of your controversial subject or the results and conclusions of your independent scientific experiment.
  
  
• Public Service or Field Experience: After a semester's preparation and reading, you work in your field as a volunteer to an agency, meeting frequently with your faculty mentor and keeping an elaborate journal of your significant learning experiences so that you can present a summary statement on conclusion.
  
  
• Portfolio: After seriously building a portfolio of your own paintings or written musical compositions over your four years in school and reading about careers and portfolios of artists you admire, you construct your portfolio and interpret it in a written autobiographical and developmental analysis.
  
  
• Co-Teaching: As a prospective teacher with expertise in a certain subject area, you spend a semester reading and then co-teach an Honors Seminar with an honors faculty member. You record your learning experience in a journal. Your grade as co-teacher is influenced by the students' evaluation of you as well as by your faculty mentor.
  

Completing these 6 additional semester hours of upper-level honors with an A or B and a GPA of 3.5 or better entitles you to receive "University Honors" in your field. Graduating with distinction helps in your application to graduate school, professional school and employment. In addition, you will receive special recognition during the honors graduation ceremony and present an overview of your project either at the Honors Recognition Ceremony for Fall graduates, or at ECU’s annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities Symposium in the spring for Spring graduates.

Transfer Students

We welcome qualified transfer students to our program. With a GPA of 3.5 from a two-year college or 3.3 from a four-year college or university, you will be eligible to join the program. You would also complete either 24 Honors Credit hours for Foundation Curriculum Honors or Foundation Curriculum Honors plus the 6 credit hours and Senior Honors Project for University Honors. Since there are many ways to earn Honors Credit, students find this to be quite manageable.

With special permission from the Director, certain Study Abroad credits from the originating institution may be counted toward fulfillment of Program requirements. Please contact the Office for further information or to set up an appointment.