The Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program

What drives you?

A change if you like the challenge

Like many students at Augustana, you may be a bright, social, well-rounded person eager to do good in the community and do well in college and a career. If you are like some Augustana students, you have an intellectual curiosity that drives you toward further investigation of compelling questions. You wonder about the larger philosophical, cultural, ethical or historical issues surrounding everyday events. You thrive in an environment of inquiry, finding the questions at least as important as the answers.

If you are an independent thinker who enjoys a good academic challenge, who likes making connections among ideas and sharing these within a like-minded community, Augustana's Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program may be right for you.

What is the Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program?

Augustana's honors program is named for Austin Eldon Knowlton, an architect, businessman and philanthropist from Delaware, Ohio. His construction company built, designed and financed more than 160 college and university buildings in his career, and in later life he donated his Delaware estate to Augustana College.

The program has two honors tracks open to first-year students: Foundations and Logos. Students work with faculty in small classes, continuing with the same group throughout the first year in an integrated sequence of complementary courses. Because the Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program fulfills the first-year general education requirements, including college writing, honors students do not enroll in AGES (Augustana General Education Studies).

The curriculum is interdisciplinary, taught by faculty from different academic departments who work together as teams, planning courses that combine, connect or draw upon knowledge from various disciplines. While they share a similar approach, the tracks are thematically different during the first year:

• Foundations considers the big questions-the classical questions that have always perplexed humankind and inspired its visionaries, such as selfhood, community, faith and morality. Using classical texts and the rich resources of the Thomas Tredway Library, students develop their research, writing and critical thinking skills.
• Logos focuses on the history and achievements of science, exploring both its power and its limitations. The program is about science, but is not in the sciences; Logos appeals to students majoring in the sciences as well as to those with interests in science, but with other ambitions for their major.

Both are intensive, highly personalized and rewarding approaches to a liberal arts education. Your professors and peers will encourage you to think beyond the familiar, communicate clearly and write persuasively. In fact, based on the premise that good writing leads to insightful, integrative thinking (and vice versa), writing will be central to learning in every course, and you'll get plenty of practice and support.

A critical edge

After the first year, you can choose to continue taking honors courses into your sophomore and junior years; the further insight you'll gain into the arts, humanities, natural and social sciences will give you a critical edge in comprehending the underlying questions and theories within your major field. In the junior year, an honors capstone completes the Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program; students who take the capstone experience design and carry out a creative or analytical project under the guidance of a faculty member.

By finishing the program, you will graduate with an honors designation on your transcript, the satisfaction of a degree well-earned, and a greater appreciation and capacity for handling complex ideas. Most of all, you'll complete your Augustana education with the knowledge and pride of having accepted a challenge to its fullest.

Foundations courses

In the Foundations first-year sequence, three professors from different disciplines teach three consecutive, carefully integrated 4-credit courses:

• 101 Self and Other uses classic Western texts to explore what it means to be a "self," to hold a point of view and follow a way of life, and what can happen when a self encounters other points of view.
• 102 Community and Faith uses critical and historical perspectives to explore the basis of community and the nature of faith.
• 103 Vision and Visionaries builds on the two previous Foundations courses to examine the lives of extraordinary individuals whose vision set them apart from their communities.

Logos courses

Like Foundations, Logos students also take three consecutive 4-credit courses during the first year. Besides 121, two options from 122-127 are offered each year.

• 121 Evolution of Scientific Principles provides a general introduction, focusing on the logic, philosophy and methods of scientists from ancient Greece to the present.
• 122 Seeking Logos: The Dialogue Between Theology and Science examines the historical interplay between science and religion within the Western tradition.
• 123 Exact Thinking: The Mathematical Dimension of Science provides the historical dimension of mathematics, emphasizing its role as a liberal art.
• 124 Great Controversies in Science critically examines various sides of some of the major controversies in the natural sciences.
• 125 The Sociology of Science examines some of the cultural variables that shape scientific inquiry.
• 126 Science and Literature examines the relation-ships between certain archetypes in science and literature, and how each discipline has historically influenced the other.
• 127 Science and Values uses theoretical and applied readings to explore whether the scientific enterprise is "value-neutral."

How can you apply for the honors program at Augustana?

First you must be admitted to Augustana through our general application process: www.augustana.edu/apply. On your Augustana supplement you should indicate your interest in the Austin E. Knowlton Honors Program. Then, we will send you an invitation to apply.

Along with submitting the Austin E. Knowlton Honors application and a writing sample, you will be required to interview on campus with an honors faculty member. After discussing the honors experience, you'll both have a clearer understanding of whether you might thrive as a student in Foundations or Logos. These interviews take place on weekdays between January and April of a student's senior year.

You can apply for the Austin E. Knowlton Honors program and select and interview date here.