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Giving to the UW
Honors Program
The Honors Program provides opportunities most often found at highly
selective universities. Honors students work closely with faculty and
with students from other disciplines. They study great works and ask
probing questions. They receive special support for study abroad,
special program advising, and help in preparing for national and
international scholarships. Members of a close-knit community, they also
strike out on their own with independent research or creative activity.
Honors significantly enhances our students’ education.
And our students know it, too.
Mike, a freshman Physics major and Latin minor, writes, “The Honors
Program offers many chances to bridge different academic
disciplines. The freshmen honors colloquium brings in many outside
professors to speak to us about their fields within the context of our
class topics and readings. These added perspectives make the class
scope much broader.”
And Stacey, a junior majoring in History, adds, “Joining the honors
program is the best decision I made in coming to college. Not only has
it greatly expanded my intellectual and analytical capabilities
through challenging courses, but it has allowed me to develop deep,
lasting relationships with professors and other students. I have met
some of my best friends on honors retreats! Honors professors have
become not just authority figures who give lectures and grades, but
mentors and friends.”
Incoming students also know a good thing when they see it. So many
students are eager for honors opportunities that the Program has nearly
tripled in size over the last ten years.
And the program continues to grow.
With that growth comes increased demand. We need to expand what we
offer and create new opportunities.
Internships. We partner with the UW Writing Center to provide
hands-on experience to honors students who improve their own writing
while helping others.
Research Support. Together with EPSCoR, we support students
who want to spend the summer hard at work pursuing independent research
under the guidance of a UW faculty member.
Travel to Conferences. Much of the research that students do
deserves wider dissemination. We help fund student travel to present
papers and participate in scholarly exchanges.
Field Trips and Classroom Support. It is a rare Honors class
that doesn’t move out into the field or invite outside authorities into
the classroom. Students in our classes visit a Buddhist temple the
Colorado Rockies or the ghost town of Carbon in order to learn by
seeing, doing, touching, and hearing.
Special Courses Abroad. Honors sponsors courses in Japan and
in England and Italy. It is one thing to read Shakespeare; and it is
quite another to see his plays performed by the greatest acting
companies in the world. It is one thing to read about the shoguns or
the destruction of Hiroshima; it is quite another to walk the grounds of
an ancient castle or to talk to survivors of the atomic bomb. Soon
another course will take students to India where they can work in the
missions of Mother Theresa or visit the home of Mahatma Gandhi.
Scholarships. Scholarships not only help individual students
realize their dreams of the best education, not only motivate and
acknowledge academic excellence, but they also help us to bring students
from Iraq and Indiana and Saipan and Sheridan into our classrooms where
a rich mixture of ideas and experiences excites inquiry and challenges
conventional wisdom.
Your gifts may be specifically directed toward any one of these
activities, or you may ask that your donation be directed toward the
area of greatest need. We are excited at the prospect of providing these
opportunities to even more students.
While your gifts to the Honors Program make a profound difference in
the lives of individual students, it is not only students who benefit:
your gifts also shape the future of the University of Wyoming.
The achievement of its students is a primary measure of a
university’s success. A successful Honors Program helps the University
of Wyoming compete with highly selective colleges and universities for
talented, motivated students. Our reputation helps; the Princeton
Review’s guide to The Best 345 Colleges noted that “The Honors
Program here is excellent,” and we have been recognized as one of the
top 55 programs in America.
Ultimately, though, it takes your support to attract and challenge
students who have the character and ability that we want at our
university. Strong faculty, modern facilities, and motivating
scholarships are all of great importance in attracting top students
across the disciplines. Your gift to the Honors Program will give the
University of Wyoming the ability to recruit - and develop - the finest
students in the world.
Thanks to the generosity of the Wyoming Legislature, gifts greater
than $50,000 – a one-time contribution or pledged over as many as five
years – can be matched dollar for dollar, doubling the impact of
your donation and establishing a lasting endowment that will enhance the
work of students far into the future. If you would like to discuss a
possible gift to the Honors Program, please call Duncan Harris, the
Honors Program Director, at (307) 766-4110. It is also possible to give
online through the University of Wyoming Foundation.
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