A note from the Honors Program director, Rev. Dr. Alex Thompson

Welcome from the TWU Honors Program!

I am excited that you are interested in our dynamic community of students and faculty who are exploring the big questions that shape our world. Community is a crucial part of our Honors Program. Learning has always involved more than individuals who take tests and get grades. Learning is a formative process that happens in dynamic conversation with others, where ideas are refined in conversation and embodied in communities. Whenever one considers major moments in history, community has always shaped the intellectual spirit: the symposiums of the ancient Greeks where questions of justice were debated around the dinner table, the councils of the early Church where matters of Christian truth emerged from the community’s theological reflection, the debates about American freedom in the Continental Congress, and the European salons where the ideas of the Enlightenment were refined. Community is the crucible of intellectual and personal growth.

At the Honors Program at TWU, we believe in the importance of community and deliberately foster it both inside and outside the classroom. Conversations about citizenship held with your colleagues in the Honors seminar classes easily spill continue outside the classroom at the lunch table and dorm rooms. Questions about the common good encountered in course readings are given new insight by service projects or trips abroad. Our Honors Program sees learning as a lifelong journey that is at its best when it is done with others.

I am excited you are interested in joining our community and look forward to the unique contributions you might bring to the table as we ask those important questions that help us find fulfilling lives in the global community.