About Us | University Honors Program | SIU

Note from the Director

These are uncertain times of great challenges and possibilities. Covid-19 has revealed how radically similar and interdependent we are in the face of this virus -- and also how deeply divided and isolated. The effects of the virus vary based on access to health and other socio-economic indices, but it has fundamentally altered the world as we knew it. Yet, even as we were grappling with the challenges thrown by this global pandemic, we are left mourning the loss of George Flyod, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Delaina Ashley Yaun, Paul Andre Michels, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng. We must join all those who are resisting the ongoing culture and practice of systemic racism in our midst. This violence is intolerable and has to stop. Any education worth its name teaches us to recognize injustice and to call it by its name. "The function of education," says, Martin Luther King Jr, is "to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character--that is the goal of true education." And he adds, "We may have all come on different ships, but we are on the same boat now." There is absolutely no place for hate in the Honors Program.

In the University Honors Program, we are proud to offer our high-achieving students the support to craft their own way through the wealth of intellectual resources and social engagement of a comprehensive public research university. The University Honors Program partners with our outstanding faculty to challenge and enrich our students. We see ourselves as an incubator for innovative teaching and pedagogy, facilitating interdisciplinary collaborations and ways to bridge the gap between the classroom, the field, the lab, the studio, and the community.

What makes us unique is our history and location. We are inspired by the legacy of Buckminster Fuller; by his conception of the human as the “comprehensive comprehender and co-ordinator of local universal affairs.” “If nature required us to be specialists," Fuller says, "we would have been born with one eye and a microscope attached to it.” Our goal is to create an educational experience that empowers students to “steer this spaceship [earth] to safe harbor.” (From Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. (1969), which Fuller wrote while here at SIUC). We are located in the beautiful Shawnee forest and a university that has a longstanding commitment to ecology. For instance, SIUC students demanded a Green Fee which is now used to support sustainability projects. This is the background to the interdisciplinary initiatives that the University Program strives to support.

Lately, we have begun to speak of the Fuller Saluki – a cheeky, wistful desire to unite the vision of shared abundance with the gritty and grounded, can-do attitude of the saluki creed. Join us in this adventure!

Jyotsna Kapur, Ph.D
Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, Cross appointed with Sociology
Director, University Honors Program

Meet our Honors Mentors

Brenda Sanders
Assistant Director 
brendas@siu.edu 
618/453-2838

Elizabeth Donoghue
Assistant Director and Major Scholarships Coordinator
elizabeth.donoghue@siu.edu    
618/453–3471

David Milley
Assistant Director, Learning, Service, & Leadership
milleydr@siu.edu   
618/453–1691

Jyotsna Kapur, Ph.D.
Director, University Honors Program
jkapur@siu.edu
618/453-1688

All Honors students are required to meet with their Honors mentor prior to registration each semester. This is in addition to advisement within your major. Ideally, Honors mentoring and course selection should take place before the student meets with their major advisor. Honors mentoring is to ensure that the student is making satisfactory progress in the UHP and to make sure they are up-to-date on information and opportunities. 

Mentoring appointments are for 30 minutes. An announcement will be made on The 4-1-1 requesting that you set up an appointment with your Honors mentor.

About your mentoring appointment: 

• Come prepared! Know your outstanding Core Curriculum requirements.
• If you have questions about your major's degree requirements, contact your primary academic advisor prior to your visit with your Honors mentor
• Be on time! It is essential that you arrive on time; if you are late for your scheduled appointment, you risk being bumped to a later time slot.
• If you need to cancel, please contact the office ahead of time.