St. Augustine Honors Program
Distinguished Scholars: Introducing the St. Augustine Honors Program
If you’re enrolled at St. Augustine College (SAC), you’ve already taken the first step to realizing your dreams. To help inspire you and raise the bar of excellence, St. Augustine is pleased to announce the launch of an inaugural Honors Program for high-achieving students. Those who are already performing well in their courses and seek additional academic challenges are ideally suited for this unique program.
SAC Honors Requirements
To qualify for the SAC Honors program, you must maintain a 3.75 minimum cumulative GPA either from SAC and/or transferred* courses or a 3.5 GPA if two faculty members recommend you as a candidate. Freshmen students are eligible to apply for the Honors program after having earned 16 credit hours. All honors courses must be 200 level or above. *Transfer courses don’t affect GPA as they transfer with a T grade, but the actual grade is available from the transfer transcript.
Raising the Bar: Honors Curriculum
If you want to elevate your educational experience with a more advanced Honors Program designation, the first step is contacting the faculty member or professor for the relevant course. Preferably, this should take place before the term begins or right after the term starts, to better identify if the faculty member is willing and able to develop and teach a more advanced Honors Curriculum. Note that this request can only come from a student already accepted in the Honors Program.
If the faculty member or professor is willing and able, then an Honors Curriculum is to be submitted to the Department Chair for approval; final approval is granted by the Academic Dean. The content of an Honors Curriculum varies from discipline to discipline, but it must include:
- a) An Honors Project (through research, application, etc.).
- b) In lab courses, the Honors Program student is expected to develop practical skills through assistantship.
- c) Higher thresholds for letter grades, such as 92% rather than 90% threshold to earn an A.
The Honors Curriculum supplements and enhances—not replaces—the course content of the specific course. Once the Honors Curriculum has been approved by the Academic Dean, the Honors Contract is signed by both the faculty and Honors Student. The student must recognize the course grade is determined by the syllabus for the Honors course and they may not return to the original section at some later point in the semester.
With Honors: Graduating as a SAC Scholar
St. Augustine College Scholars will set the example for their families, their communities, and the institution at large. To graduate with this distinction, you must have earned a minimum of 20 credit hours in Honors courses (though you are welcome to earn as many credit hours with the Honors designation as you wish). Associate degree students must earn 12 credit hours to be recognized as an Associate Degree Scholar. This prestigious honor also entitles you to have those courses listed on your transcript on a separate page as an Honors Transcript.
