Honors Program Mission Statement
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The Honors Program is dedicated to enriching the academic, social, and ethical experience of academically talented and intellectually curious students at Loras College through a series of courses dedicated to nurturing an ethical and imaginative engagement with the world and introducing Great Ideas from around the globe that have helped shape perceptions of justice and society. It offers a sequence of courses taught by excellent and creative instructors that challenges students to work hard, think creatively, and see the world with understanding, compassion, and imagination. The sequence of classes, entitled “Imagining a Better World” focuses on what Creativity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship can offer to community, society, and the globe. It asks students to face the challenges offered by Jesus Christ to “love your neighbor as yourself” and Mohandas Gandhi to “be the change you wish to see in the world” in their own areas of interest and special ability. Incorporated into Honors courses is attention to issues of diversity, discovery, and service. All courses are interdisciplinary and interactive, introduce students to some of the most important “Great Ideas” that have helped to shape the ethical and social foundations of societies, and many have a significant experiential component and involve independent or group research. The Honors Program does not require students to take substantial additional credits, but instead provides an alternative means by which students can fulfill the liberal arts general education requirements in the Loras College curriculum. The learning community that develops in Honors is one that is designed to embrace the principle “pro Deo et gentibus et mundo,” in other words that it finds meaning in service to God, humanity, and the earth. It understands the Catholic mission of the college as one of hospitality in an environment of global diversity, community in the context of change, and mediation in a world of need and discontent.