College and departmental Honors programs at NC State are designed to provide more rigorous and enhanced learning opportunities in specific disciplines for the most highly motivated and able students. These upper-level programs provide a depth of learning with a disciplinary emphasis, usually within a student's major. Students are invited to participate in Honors programs based on academic performance in their majors, generally during or after the second semester of the second year. Most Honor programs at NC State are departmentally based; the Honors programs in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the College of Forest Resources, and the College of Textiles are college-wide. Departmental and College honors programs are separate from the University Honors Program and the University Scholars Program. 

GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING HONORS PROGRAMS

The following guidelines were developed by the University Honors Council and endorsed by the College Curriculum Committees and the University Courses and Curricula Committee and approved by the Provost in September 1990.

ADMISSION

• Honors programs will have a minimum admission requirement of a 3.25 overall GPA and a 3.25 major GPA after at least 9 hours of coursework required for the major or other coursework approved by the major department. Each college should establish minimum admissions criteria for its honors programs sufficiently distinctive that eligibility for admission would be limited to not more than the top 25% of the sophomore class of that college.

COURSEWORK

A minimum of 9 credit hours in courses numbered 300 or above drawn from at least two of the three following categories:

• Special courses for Honors students, either courses open only to Honors students or Honors (H) sections of regularly offered courses, or Honors options in regularly offered courses, or regularly offered courses that departments or colleges designate as appropriate for their Honors programs.
• Advanced courses, 500-level courses that are taken as electives or as substitutes for lower-level
  courses.
• Independent studies that can take on a variety of forms: a senior thesis or paper, a project and
  project report, lab work and lab report, a group of individual tutorial guided by a faculty member.

COMPLETION

• A student will be deemed to have completed an Honors Program upon completing successfully the designated coursework of the program and achieving an overall GPA of at least 3.25.

RECOGNITION

• For students who complete Honors programs , the phrase "Completed Honors Program in (discipline)" will appear on their permanent transcripts.

OPERATION

• Proposals for new or revised Honors programs will be reviewed and approved according to the regular procedures for Academic Programs & Services (APS) including review by college curriculum committees, the University Courses and Curricula Committee (UCCC) and final approval by the Dean of the Division of Academic and Student Affairs (DASA). Individual programs will be directed by the colleges and/or departments. Each college and/or department should designate a member of its faculty as coordinator or director of its Honors program.