About the Junior Honors Colloquium

For the past year, the Honors Program and the Executive Board have been working on an innovative and exciting way to bridge the freshman/sophomore honors experience and the senior honors year. In particular, we were looking for a way to satisfy an oft expressed desire among juniors to maintain the sense of intellectual community they most valued in the program at a time when the demands of the major and the allure of study abroad began to draw them in other directions. What we and the student board have devised is a new Junior Honors Colloquium.

The colloquium will focus on a broad, interdisciplinary topic chosen by rising juniors. For Fall 2005, your classmates proposed that we explore “America in the World.” Professors from a variety of disciplines addressed a wide range of topics, including globalization, disaster relief, democratization, world health issues and global cooperation and alliances. These sessions offered students the opportunity to meet and join in conversation with some of Carolina’s most distinguished teachers and scholars. Rising juniors participated in the selection of invited speakers.

The Junior Honor Colloquium topic for Spring 2006 is Entrepeneuralship. The colloquium meets on eight Wednesday evenings. We begin at 6:30PM with a social gathering followed by a presentation from our faculty guest. The evening concludes with small, student-led discussion groups. The Junior Honors Colloquium will be offered each semester as HNRS 350 for one hour of P/F credit. The colloquium will focus on a different topic each term. By successfully completing the course in either fall or spring of their junior year, students will maintain their standing within the Honors Program. Their transcripts will read, “Completed Junior Honors Program.”