Honors
UMass Lowell Commonwealth Honors is an academic enrichment program whose mission is to nurture creativity, to strengthen communication, and to foster community. These three goals underpin all we do both inside and outside of the Honors classroom.
Nurture Creativity: The ability to perform creatively is a crucial part of all students’ learning experience in every discipline and every level of their college experience. The necessity of thinking creatively follows students throughout their entire undergraduate career and beyond. What is any form of research but having to think and ask questions creatively? From quantitative research performed in a physics or chemistry lab, to investigating the writings of a famous author, even finding a novel way to address a social issue, innovating ways to use plastics in a medical application, students must use a deep and developed form of creativity. What about the business students who must market a product, or who even want to create their own business? That, too, requires not only an analytical mind, but a creative one as well. Here at the Honors Program at UMass Lowell, we encourage and challenge Honors students to push their own creative boundaries and perform, while continually affirming their ability to do so.
Strengthen Communication: Creativity alone is not enough to cultivate student success, because students must be able to effectively communicate their ideas. Honors students receive encouragement, guidance, and study in an environment where they can practice communicating their research results, inventions, business plans, music compositions, experiments, ideas, and visions to a wider community. The Commonwealth Honors Program strives to strengthen a student’s ability to write and speak. These valuable skills of language can be difficult to master, but are absolutely necessary for both a successful undergraduate career and a successful future. These crucial skills can be learned and nurtured, and a student’s ability to write and speak can be dramatically improved with practice and strong mentorship. The Commonwealth Honors Program offers its students a chance to accelerate their mastery over the written and spoken word, preparing them to advantageously compete for future academic and career opportunities.
Foster Community: At the Commonwealth Honors Program, we foster community in several distinct ways. First, our Honors Living and Learning community brings students, staff and faculty together. Honors students at UMass Lowell have the opportunity to live in Honors housing along with other dedicated Honors students. Additionally, Honors students register for low-enrollment classes that allow for a heightened experience with faculty and other students. Students are also provided service-learning opportunities in the surrounding communities through dedicated courses, through components of an existing course, or through a volunteer basis. Honors Students are provided with a community that promotes the sharing of their ideas and assessing the value of past and present research, innovation, and creativity. Innovations are neither made in a vacuum nor can they exist there; it is not enough just to communicate and communicate alone. The Commonwealth Honors Program teaches students to find value in what they have created and what they have learned. Our Honors community is based on a constant pursuit of knowledge and innovations, and a community that is supportive of its members. Honors students are able to contribute to the body of knowledge as much as they glean from it. Students not only learn and achieve in the Commonwealth Honors Program at UMass Lowell, but they also build confidence and bonds that they will hold on to for the rest of their successful lives.