Honors Program

The Honors Program aims to cultivate a strong sense of cultural awareness and global citizenship in its students. As such, our study/travel program is a centerpiece of our curriculum. For the past 25 years, the Honors Program has been taking students to destinations near and far, ranging from international destinations, such as London, Rome, Paris, Dublin, Belfast, Berlin, and Athens, to vistas closer to home, such as Washington DC or a regional road trip around our own beautiful state!

In these study / travel courses, students spend a number of weeks learning about the culture, history, politics, and geography of our destination and then the group travels to that destination together. Our traditional international study/travel classes typically involve a week abroad, during spring break – or, in the event of our unprecedented London 2025 trip, TWO weeks! For many of our students, these trips involve their first time traveling out of the country – or even the state -- for the first time. Many have never flown before or used public transportation. As a result, our trips are designed to introduce students to (international) travel in a supportive environment that allows them to cultivate a strong sense of travel confidence while exploring the world, forging community bonds, developing appreciation for culture, and enhancing a sense of global citizenship. While there may be a “once in a lifetime” perception of our trips, our true goal is that these will be “first in a lifetime” opportunities for our students, who we hope will continue to travel and explore the world for the rest of their lives.
For this year’s Day of Giving, the Honors Program hopes to raise funds to facilitate our 2026 study/travel trip to Rome, Italy. While the Honors Program does everything it can to keep the cost for students as low possible, international travel is a costly affair. Every contribution – no matter how big or small – goes a considerable way to helping us keep the cost from being too prohibitive for our students and enables us to provide this opportunity for students who might not otherwise be able to participate. By helping us to keep the cost of travel manageable for our students, our generous Day of Giving donors are helping us to ensure that our Honors students can sign on for these ventures.