Policies and Procedures

Policy: Honors Advising Appointments (November 2018)

Added: 2018-11-01

An Honors student who misses two scheduled advising appointments, without contacting their adviser, will be automatically dismissed from the College. Any student who is dismissed based on this policy may petition to have their status reinstated by submitting a formal appeal letter to the Honors College Executive Committee at honors@uta.edu.

Policy: Honors Progress (Fall 2017)

Added: 2017-10-18

Students who do not earn more than 10 (ten) hours of Honors credits within two academic years will be dismissed from the Honors College for lack of progress. Students can check their progress any time in the Student Portal.

Policy: Honors Progress (Fall 2016)

Added: 2016-08-01

Students who do not earn more than 6 (six) hours of Honors credits within two academic years will be dismissed from the Honors College for lack of progress. Students can check their progress any time in the Student Portal.

Policy: Honors College Mandatory Orientation for New Students (Fall 2015)

Added: 2015-11-02

New freshman or transfer Honors students beginning coursework at UT Arlington in the fall semester are required to attend Honors College Orientation in August of their first semester.

Policy: Honors Progress for New Students (Spring 2014)

Added: 2014-02-04

Students who are admitted to the Honors College with only 4 semesters until graduation must complete no less than 6 hours of Honors credits in their first semester, and no less than a total of 12 hours by the end of their first year.
Honors students are expected to make sufficient progress in earning their Honors hours. Generally, this equates to at least 6 hours per academic year. Students who earn no more than 6 hours of Honors credits in two years will be dismissed from the Honors College for lack of progress.

Policy: Number of Hours in Major (Fall 2013)Added: 2013-10-18

Honors students must complete 24 hours of Honors credit. Of these hours, at least 12 must be in the student’s major discipline.

Policy: Earning an Honors Degree in Two Disciplines (dual and double majors) (Fall 2013)

Added: 2013-10-18

Honors students who are completing a dual or double major and want to earn an Honors degree in both disciplines must complete 30 hours of Honors credit. Of these hours, at least 12 hours must be in the student’s primary major and another 12 hours in the secondary major. Additionally, the student must complete a Senior Project in each discipline and give separate presentations for each at the Fall and/or Spring Honors Undergraduate Symposium (HRS).

Policy: Honors Credit Grade Policy (Spring 2013)

Added: 2013-02-04

Credit toward a student's Honors degree will be granted only for courses in which a final grade of A or B is earned. This policy covers courses contracted for Honors credit, sections of Honors courses designated exclusively for Honors students, and dedicated HONR-prefix courses. Students enrolled in such courses who earn a final grade of C or D can count the courses toward their bachelor's degree if approved by their major department; however, the hours earned will not contribute to the required 24 hours of Honors credit.

Policy: Credit Contract Course Eligibility (Spring 2013)

Added: 2013-02-04

Honors students are not permitted to contract the following courses for Honors credit: Developmental and elementary/skills courses (e.g., ENGL 0301 and ENGL 1000-level courses, CSE 1301, 1310, etc.); foreign language courses 1441, 1442, 2313, 2314 and 2315; exercise courses; online courses; and Intersession courses. Contact an Honors adviser if there is a question about a particular course not listed above.

Policy: Honors Credits Limits (Spring 2013)

Added: 2013-02-04

Honors College students may not enroll in more than nine hours of Honors credit coursework during the fall or spring semesters. If students wish to complete Honors credit contracts during the summer semester, the maximum number of hours that can be earned is six. Students may contract only one course per session, or two in the eleven week session.

Policy: Five-Year / Fast Track Programs and the Senior Project (Spring 2013)

Added: 2013-02-04

Students enrolled in a five-year or Fast Track program in which they receive both their Bachelor's and Master's degrees simultaneously, may not use their Master's thesis or other final project to fulfill the Honors College Senior Project requirement.

Policy: Honors Scholarship Deadlines (Fall 2012)

Added: 2012-10-05

Beginning with applications for the 2013-2014 academic year, all Honors College scholarship applications are due on the same date as UT Arlington's Financial Aid and Scholarship Office (http://www.uta.edu/fao/scholarships/deadline.php). This policy revision supersedes all previous published scholarship deadlines. If you hold a scholarship that must be renewed for the next academic year, or you wish to apply for a new scholarship, your application must be submitted to the Honors College by the same date as UT Arlington's scholarship application. The deadline for each year is found on the scholarship form.

Note: A few specialized scholarships will have a different deadline.

2015-01-07 - Updated: Changes made to link Honors College scholarship deadline with UT Arlington's scholarship deadline.

Policy: Honors Registration (Fall 2010)

Added: 2010-08-25

Honors students may enroll in no more than nine hours of Honors credit per long semester, and the College strongly advises first-year students to sign up or no more than six hours of Honors credit each term.

Policy: Time to completion of the Honors degree (Fall 2009)

Added: 2009-09-02

Prospective Honors graduates must submit all materials for the Senior Project no later than ten days before their scheduled commencement exercise.

Under extraordinary circumstances (and only by petition submitted to the Executive Committee of the Honors College no later than ten days before their scheduled commencement exercise), a student's time to completion may be extended. The extension granted will in no case exceed one long semester.

Policy: Selection of a thesis mentor (Spring 2008)

Because the Honors thesis/creative activity project is the culmination and signature product of a student's Honors degree at the University of Texas at Arlington, only full-time UT Arlington faculty members are permitted to serve as thesis/creative activity mentors. Thus, Honors students cannot conduct their Honors thesis research, creative activity or group project under the direct supervision of a faculty member at another university, professional school or research institution.

Policy: GPA calculation for students in combined bachelor's/master's five-year programs (Fall 2006)

Added: 2006-11-07

The Honors College encourages high-achieving students to explore opportunities in UT Arlington's combined bachelor's/master's degree programs, but they should understand that these programs can be very demanding. While the University Registrar cites undergraduate and graduate GPAs separately on student transcripts, Honors College advisers calculate an aggregated GPA for Honors students enrolled in these programs at the end of each semester (total overall undergraduate plus graduate grade points divided by total overall undergraduate plus graduate credit hours). Students whose aggregated GPA falls below 3.2 are subject to Honors probation, which may have ramifications for continuation of their scholarship support.

Policy: Taking Graduate Courses for Honors Credit (Fall 2006)

Added: 2006-10-09

Undergraduate Honors students can earn Honors credit toward their degrees by taking up to 6 hours of graduate coursework (indeed, students are encouraged to explore this option with faculty in their major departments). Only courses for which the grade A or B is earned may be counted, and they cannot be taken Pass/Fail. Note that the 6-hour limit applies to all Honors College students, including those in five-year combined bachelor's/master's degree programs.

Students who seek to exercise this option must submit in accordance with published semester deadlines an Honors Credit Contract form for each graduate course. They are not required to complete supplementary projects, since graduate courses are by their nature of sufficient rigor to satisfy Honors College standards. Honors Credit Contracts can be created digitally on the Honors College web site at https://www.uta.edu/honors/secure/credit/.

Policy: Thesis requirement for students seeking an Honors Degree in a Dual Baccalaureate/Masters Degree Program (Summer 2007)

Added: 2007-08-07

Honors students in dual Baccalaureate/Masters Degree programs must complete an Honors research or creative activity thesis that is separate and distinct from any thesis project required for awarding of the Masters degree (i.e., the student's Masters Thesis or capstone project cannot also be submitted as an Honors thesis). The student's Honors thesis must be on a topic within his/her undergraduate major and must be mentored by a faculty member in the department granting the student's baccalaureate degree. Students may apply up to six credit hours of graduate course work as courses for Honors credit. However, they must submit a designation form (follow this link to download the Designation Form in the Digital Documents section) applying for Honors credit for that graduate course to the Honors College within the first 30 days of the long semester in which they enrolled in the course. The Honors thesis must be submitted at the latest by the appropriate deadline during the last semester that they are enrolled in a dual Baccalaureate/Masters Degree program.

Policy: Mandatory Advising for Students (Spring 2006)

In order to ensure that Honors students understand the requirements for completing the Honors degree, all Honors students are required to make and keep a mandatory Degree Audit advising appointment in the semester immediately following the semester in which they accumulate 60 hours of coursework toward their degree. It is the student's responsibility to contact the Honors College Advising Office to make this appointment.

In keeping with this policy, all current Honors students who have accumulated fewer than 12 Honors credits and have 45 or fewer hours remaining in their degree plan will be removed from the Honors College. The purpose of this requirement is to encourage students not to fall behind in accumulating their Honors hours, and to ensure that the benefits of the Honors program are focused on students who are actively pursuing their Honors Degree requirements.

This policy supersedes any previous policies regarding Mandatory Advising.

Policy: Taking Graduate Courses for Honors Credit (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-11-16

Undergraduate Honors students can earn Honors credit by taking a Graduate course. The student must submit in accordance with published semester deadlines an Honors Credit Contract form for the course but does not need to devise a project for the credit. Graduate courses by their nature are of sufficient rigor to preclude extra work. Honors Credit Contracts can be created digitally on the Honors College web site at https://www.uta.edu/honors/secure/credit/.

Clarification: Presentation of Research / Project at HRS or ACES (Fall 2005)

Updated: 2009-09-09

All students completing an Honors degree are required to make an oral presentation on their senior projects in the fall or spring semester at the Honors Research Symposium (HRS).

The nature of some projects requires additional presentations that take place on or off campus. While students might be obliged to do such presentations as part of related course(s), those presentations will not fulfill the requirement for graduating with the Honors Degree.

New: Students who are enrolled in a five-year program that awards an undergraduate and graduate degree at the same time can schedule their oral presentations at any point in the program.

Updated: 2015-01-07

Added: 2006-04-24

New: Distance Education and the Honors College (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-10-19

There are two policies regarding Distance Education:

The Honors College does not permit the use of Distance Education courses for Honors College credit with the sole exception of traditional in-classroom courses taught at the UTA Fort Worth campus

The Honors Degree is not compatible with those degrees that are earned by Distance Education

New: UTA eCulture Initiative and the Honors College (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-10-12

UTA's policy is described here:

Recently, the university adopted email as an official means of communication with students. As you already know, the university has provided all students with free email accounts for some time, but few students actually use this account. Instead they use private accounts through Yahoo, Hotmail, etc. In conjunction with this initiative, students will be required to use the UTA email account, now known as MavMail, since the university will only send messages to this account. In order to ensure that students receive mail sent by the university, they will no longer be allowed to automatically redirect messages sent by UTA to their private accounts. In addition, the email address (or alias) has changed in format and will not include a portion of the student's Social Security number.

Phase I of this initiative will commence in the Fall 2005 semester with an electronic newsletter that will be sent to students each Sunday. Then, over the next few semesters, the university will begin conducting certain business transactions exclusively by email, such as notification about financial aid awards and tuition statements. At a point, paper notifications and statements will no longer be sent to students.

The Honors College is preparing to take advantage of this initiative. A timetable is presently being discussed and a formal announcement will be made with adequate lead-time.

New: Mandatory Advising for Students with 60+ hours (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-10-11

This policy has been superseded by the Mandatory Advising Policy (Spring 2006).

Clarification: Composited HONR Courses (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-09-15

In HONR sections that are composited with a non-Honors course, Honors students in the HONR course sections must meet different requirements than students in the departmental course with which it has been composited. Specifically, it is expected that course instructors will assign students in their HONR 4303 sections an extra scholarly paper, project, research or other endeavor that is not expected of students taking the departmental section of the course. If Honors students in an HONR 4303 section do not complete the extra assigned scholarly paper, project, research, or other endeavor, they will not have completed the requirements to pass the HONR 4303 course and, at the end of the semester, an instructor may assign them either an incomplete grade (X) until the Honors assignment is completed or a failing grade (F).

HONR composite courses do not require a Honors Credit Contract.

Updated: Maymester and Wintermester Courses (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-09-15

It is Honors College policy that Maymester and Wintermester courses cannot be contracted for Honors credit, as they do not allow enough time to complete an honors-level project. You can view the deadlines and find more information related to Honors Credit Contracts at the web page listed below.

Learn more here: https://www.uta.edu/honors/secure/credit/

Updated: Honors Credit Contract Deadline (Fall 2005)

Updated: 2011-09-21

The credit contract has specific due dates for each semester. These due dates are noted at the top of each contract. Refer to the contract instructions for specific information about the due dates.

2011-Sept-21: Policy changed to indicate explicit deadlines now are given on the Credit Contract form.

New: Mandatory Advising (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-09-15

The Honors College now requires all newly admitted Honors students to meet with an Honors Adviser during their first semester as a member of the Honors College at UTA. In order to retain Honors College status and privileges, students must make and keep this mandatory advising appointment.

Newly admitted Honors College Students who do not make and keep this in-person appointment during their first semester as a UTA Honors student will be dropped from the Honors College.

The Honors College strongly recommends all Honors College students be advised thereafter at least once a year, in addition to meeting with their major/department adviser.

Clarification: Honors Credit Contract Procedures (Fall 2005)

Added: 2005-09-15

The procedure for establishing and earning Honors credit in a non-Honors course by contract (Honors Credit Contract) has been revised and clarified. You can review the procedure at the web page listed below.

Learn more here: http://www.uta.edu/honors/advising/othercredits.php

Update: Selection of Faculty for Honors Thesis/Project and Honors Credit Contract Courses (Spring 2005)

Updated: 2011-09-21

Only instructors who are full-time, tenured/tenure-track faculty members or full-time lecturers may supervise this contract. Graduate students, part-time instructors and adjunct faculty members cannot supervise Honors contract course work.

2011-Sept-21: This policy has been updated to express more clearly the criteria of eligible faculty.

New: Probation Policy (Fall 2004)

Added: 2004-11-15

Current Honors students are required to maintain a 3.2 GPA (3.0 GPA for students accepted to the Honors College prior to September 1, 2001) to remain in good standing with the Honors College. Students will not be automatically removed from the Honors College should they fall below the 3.2 GPA standard. Students whose GPA falls below the requirements will be notified in writing of their status and be given the opportunity and support for returning to the Honors academic standards by entering into an Honors Probation Contract. Students who sign the probation contract remain in good standing in the Honors College during the probationary period. Students who do not sign the Probation Contract or who do not reach the target 3.2 GPA by the end of the probationary period will be removed from the Honors College. They are, however, eligible to reapply for admission should they later meet Honors College admission standards.