ACU’s planning document The 21st Century Vision calls the University to produce "leaders who think critically, globally and missionally," who are "salt and light," who will "make a significant difference in a constantly changing society." What does that look like in ACU's most gifted students?

The Honors Program’s response to the Vision is to develop students in three overlapping roles: leaders, contributors, and thinkers. As they grow into these roles, students live out the Honors Program slogan "Great gifts, great responsibilities." Every Honors class or activity (service learning, chapel, study abroad, reading groups, the Honors Capstone, etc.) supports certain outcomes from the list below, and the benefit is cumulative. It is the whole Honors process—course by course, year by year, with the support of friends and mentors—that nurtures students to fulfill their potential in the three roles.

Leaders with a Burden for Justice: Graduates who use their intellectual and social gifts to achieve influence in the service of a Christian agenda.

·         Honors students will know: how world view and choice are shaped by social and psychological forces; how their own temperament, heritage, and experience shape their perceptions and values; how religions, especially Christianity, have shaped and been shaped by civilizations and societies; how economies, political systems and ideologies evolve and function.

·         Honors students will demonstrate: the ability to serve by leading; to collaborate; to persuade; to foresee how decisions will promote or hinder justice; to think theologically.

·         Honors students will value: justice in the biblical sense; education and security for all; discernment; personal and corporate integrity.

Contributors with a zeal for community:

Graduates who use their gifts as dynamic national and global citizens, servants, and stewards.

·         Honors students will know: how citizens interact, negotiate, and achieve consensus; how humans interact with natural and political environments; how the arts and popular culture reveal a society.

·         Honors students will demonstrate: the ability to analyze social forces in a country they have visited; to analyze social forces they observe during service-learning; to learn from history.

·         Honors students will value: the common good; self-fulfillment through seeking the common good; the nurture of communities such as families, churches, and cities; stewardship of nature, of heritage, and of biblically informed Christianity.

Thinkers with Vision:

Graduates who are liberally educated, integrative, and imaginative, using their gifts as researchers, entrepreneurs, creators or innovators.

·         Honors students will know: the role of innovation and creativity in a civilization; methodologies for securing and evaluating information; social and ethical consequences of technological change.

·         Honors students will demonstrate: the ability to carry out research that will solve problems or create knowledge; to think across boundaries of disciplines, methodologies, bodies of information, and genres of communication.

·         Honors students will value: critical thinking; open-mindedness; collaboration; lifelong learning.