Honors Curriculum for the 21st Century

Life is not specialized. It is “interdisciplinary.” Vocationally, we may be engineers or neurosurgeons or entertainers; but, at all times we are subject to the human condition and live our lives as generalists. Academic divisions are pragmatic ways of organizing fields of knowledge, and of training specialists for a specific domain. But the philosophy of Belmont’s Honors Program is that to be educated liberally one must erase these imaginary boundaries and tear down the mental walls that hamper free access to fields of information. A holistic vision and appreciation of the human experience must be created. This philosophical commitment is best expressed in the organization of the Honors Program curriculum. In the courses that make up our program of study, teams of honors faculty members move beyond rigid compartmentalization and foster the synthetic worldview necessary to become a Belmont Scholar.