The School of Nursing's Honors Program is an academic plan that encourages, supports, and nurtures the motivated and achievement-oriented nursing student to pursue excellence. The program focuses on ideas and projects that can be achieved in classroom and clinical settings. Students are challenged to bring forth their creativity, sense of inquiry, critical thinking skills, leadership potential, and intellectual independence. Through the support of the faculty, students learn to value the essence of academic and clinical scholarship and its critical role in fulfilling the mission of the profession towards persons, families, communities and society.

Honors criteria
To successfully complete the Honors Program, students must maintain a cumulative grade point average of 3.3 or higher, complete two Honors projects and present at one of the annual Honors Symposia before graduating from CNR and present at one of the annual Honors Symposia.

Honors projects
Honors projects are developed and executed independently by Honors students with guidance and support from faculty mentors. Since nursing is a service profession, students are strongly urged to undertake projects which focus on individuals, families, communities or society, at large.  Each project is evaluated by at least two faculty members. Past Honors projects have included "Lead Poisoning Prevention" and "Nusing Students in the Political Arena: The Making of a Resolution."

Honors project proposal
Before doing an Honors project, students must submit an Honors project proposal to their faculty mentors and to the faculty representatives for acceptance. The proposal is an overview of the student's project including the objectives, exact format, bibliography and student's proposed grading criteria for the project.

Honors seminar
NUR 350 is the non-credit Honors Program seminar. Honors students must enroll in the seminar each semester they are members of the Honors Program. During the 90- minute, bi-weekly seminar, students develop their proposals, discuss progress on their projects and prepare for the Honors symposia.

Honors symposium
During the Spring semester of each academic year, students from the Honors Program present their projects during the Honors Program symposium. Each student must present at least one symposium prior to graduation. In addition, students who are working on their projects at the time of the symposium will present their works in progress at a concurrent poster session.

Honors diploma
Once Honors projects are submitted and accepted, the course during which the project was done is given an Honors designation on the student’s transcript.  To receive Honor’s Program diplomas, students must receive two Honors designations on their transcripts.