Student Life
One of the most popular features of the Honors Program is Hopkins House, where students can rest and relax, as well as do homework away from dorm distractions and gather together in small study groups. Hopkins has a warm living room, kitchen and the director's office on the first floor an electronic seminar room and two study rooms with computers on the second floor, and a study room area with two more computers on the third floor. The third floor also has an entertainment center. Altogether, Hopkins has five computers available to students all equipped with high-speed internet access through the Gonzaga network as well as access to a network printer, a copier, a scanner and fax machine in the common area on the ground floor. Hopkins is also wireless for students with laptops to link up to the University network or the internet. Hopkins facilities are accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Students particularly value the small face-to-face quality of honors classes. With twenty entering students each year,everyone gets to know everyone in their class and most everyone else in the entire program. To that end the Honors Program also sponsors a number of social gatherings and weekend outings. This begins with a weekend getaway in early September to begin to know one another, followed by seasonal parties, and a second weekend getaway in the spring.
The Honors Program also cultivates a sense of civic responsibility and service to those less fortunate. Honors students have traditionally been very involved in wider student life, particularly in theater, choir, music ensembles and the student newspaper. Some honors students have also played important roles in retreat programs through University Ministry and in freshman orientation through the Department of Student Life. All honors students are expected to have some involvement in the wider University.
While most all honors students go on to pursue advanced degrees, a substantial number of students end up deciding to enter the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (J.V.C.) and other service programs before heading off to graduate school. Honors students graduate with BA, Honors or BS, Honors.
Faculty and Students
Gonzaga University Honors students cut across all ideological, geographic, socioeconomic, and ethnic lines. The Program prides itself in its diversity of perspectives and personalities. It includes students from private and public high schools who major in a wide variety of disciplines. Program graduates are regularly placed in highly competitive graduate and professional programs throughout the country.
The Director of the Honors Program is Fr. Tim Clancy, S.J., Assistant Professor of Philosophy. He specializes in hermeneutics, communitarian political philosophy, and 19th century romanticism and idealism. Honors faculty members are a selectively rotated cross-section of Gonzaga's most experienced professors. These professors' profiles and personalities are as diverse as the students', providing a strong balance between classical and progressive teaching methodologies.