The IU Kokomo Academic Honors Program offers educational and cultural opportunities to foster intellectual curiosity and professional development for talented, highly motivated, and creative students. In addition to coursework, Honors students are given special opportunities, for example, to participate with faculty on research projects, to present their work at regional conferences, and to receive individualized counseling.

There are two types of honors courses. Honors colloquia are three-credit courses that focus on interdisciplinary topics, such as “Ethics and Technology” and “Human Intelligence.” H-Option courses provide students with a way to gain honors credit from regular courses. An H-Option section runs concurrently with a section of a regular course, and the Honors student attends class with other students. The instructor and the Honors student develop a special set of course requirements to fit the student’s abilities and interests; typically these include many of the regular requirements. To do this, students must complete an H-Option contract form with the professor’s approval and submit the form to the Honors director, who will then arrange for honors credit upon completion of the project. H-Option course sections may also be set up for internships, independent studies, field-work experience, undergraduate thesis, or other research/creative projects. Students should consult the Honors Director for currently offered honors courses.

Incoming freshman students are eligible to apply if they have combined SAT scores of 1100 or better (or an ACT score of 23) and if they have ranked in the upper 20 percent of their high school graduating class. Continuing students who have completed a minimum of 12 credit hours at IU Kokomo and maintain a GPA of 3.3 or higher are also eligible to apply.

There are two notations of student attainment. These are noted on the student’s diploma and transcript. Students may attain both University Honors and Honors in their majors.

University Honors
To qualify for the University Honors notation, students must complete 9 credit hours in honors course work inside and outside the major, a presentation of work at a student conference, plus two honors colloquia of 3 credits each.

Major Honors
Each academic division has special honors courses available for students who are majoring in disciplines offered by the division. (There are no major honors available for AHLT students at this time.) To qualify for the degree in major honors, the student must complete 9 credit hours in honors course work in the major, as determined by the division or department, a presentation of work at a student conference, plus two honors colloquia of 3 credits each. Students may count the same two honors colloquia as satisfying both university and major honors requirements.

Major Honors in Nursing
The major honors in the baccalaureate nursing program follows the general guidelines of the IU Kokomo University Honors program. Students secure eligibility to participate and remain in the major honors in nursing by attending to the eligibility criteria outlined for the Academic Honors Program. Aware of the special needs of superior nursing students, the Major Honors in Nursing Program provides these outstanding students with a variety of opportunities to enrich their nursing career and the nursing profession overall. To graduate with honors in nursing, a nursing student must complete 6 credit hours in honors courses in nursing as well as two 2-credit hour honors colloquium courses.

Honors projects within a course are meant to enhance or broaden regular course work. However, the work is in lieu of specific course activities, not in addition to those activities. Honors activities may include: research papers, field work, visual or oral presentations, creative works, analytical library work, annotating a bibliography, writing a series of position papers, or participating in a major scientific project. Honors nursing students and faculty responsible for teaching the specific honors courses work together to create a project and a contract for completing the project.