About Us

The Honors College brings together four innovative interdisciplinary undergraduate programs -- the Honors Program, University Scholars, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, and Great Texts. What unites the four programs is their shared commitment to providing students the opportunity to pursue the sorts of questions that often fall between the cracks of the specialized disciplines, to investigate the writings of scientists along with the writings of poets, historians, and philosophers.

The greatest minds have always transcended specific disciplines. In antiquity, Aristotle, called by the poet Dante the "master of those who know," wrote treatises on logic, physics, ethics, and poetry. At the beginning of the modern era, the artist Leonardo da Vinci was trained in science, math, philosophy and theology, as was the great Christian apologist, Pascal. In the 20th century, the physicist, Werner Heisenberg, wrote about philosophy and religion. Great poets and novelists, such as Donne and Coleridge, Eliot and Woolf, have been influenced by debates in philosophy, theology, and science.

Interdisciplinary education aims not to replace but to complement the specialized instruction found in specific disciplines. Distinct academic disciplines with their own subject matters and methods of inquiry are integral parts of the modern university. Interdisciplinary learning aims to expand students' intellectual horizons and help them to see particular branches of study in relation to one another and to the whole of human inquiry. For example, in the study of the sciences and mathematics, students will come to appreciate the historical development of these disciplines, the sorts of questions that initiated the great breakthroughs in the modern sciences, and the way developments in the sciences influence and are influenced by a variety of fields of inquiry.

As John Henry Newman puts it in his book The Idea of a University,

True enlargement of the mind is the power of viewing many things at once as one whole, of understanding their respective values, and determining their mutual dependence. That perfection of the intellect which is the result of education...is the clear, calm, accurate vision and comprehension of all things, as far as the finite mind can embrace them, each in its place, and with its characteristics upon it.

In short, we are looking for students who desire to have their intellect perfected. Will you join us?