Northwestern Honors Program receives grant

Northwestern College’s Honors Program recently received a Portz Grant from the National Collegiate Honors Council to help strengthen its curriculum. The grant money will allow for a stipend to be given to three Northwestern faculty members who develop an honors course in the next year.

In its online announcement of Portz Grant recipients, the National Collegiate Honors Council notes, “The new honors curriculum at Northwestern College strives to occupy ideological spaces that, by design, blur disciplinary lines. Not only do their courses focus on broad, foundational topics that overlap with multiple disciplines; they have also been designed to fulfill the objectives of two required general education categories simultaneously.”

Northwestern’s Honors Program, comprised of more than 65 students, was recently redesigned and includes honors courses in the general education curriculum and select elements of courses within students’ majors. In addition to completing honors courses, members of the Honors Program must complete an Honors Scholarship project and maintain a minimum of a 3.5 GPA.  

“We are pleased the National Collegiate Honors Council recognized the innovative nature of the Honors Program curriculum at Northwestern,” says Dr. Jennifer Feenstra, professor of psychology and co-director of Northwestern’s Honors Program. “We are excited about the future of the program.”