More Than an Academic Credential: A Community Built to Solve Real-World Challenges
When you come to Rocky Top, you bring more than strong grades. You bring curiosity, purpose, and a desire to make a difference.
Honors learning goes beyond lectures, grades, and credentials. You learn to listen well, ask better questions, and work with others to solve problems that affect real communities.
The Chancellor’s Honors Program (CHP) brings together students from every major across campus. Through the 18-credit Chancellor’s Honors Program Minor, you learn human-centered design and use it to tackle complex challenges with people and their lived experiences at the center.
“We designed the Chancellor’s Honors experience around a simple truth: the world does not need scholars who simply memorize yesterday’s answers. We need leaders who have the courage, empathy, and collaborative mindset to solve tomorrow’s problems.”
— Dr. Pat Akos, Associate Vice Provost for Student Success & University Honors Department Head
The Foundation: Beginning with Belonging
- University Honors Induction & FYS 101: University Honors First-Year Seminar (1 Credit Hour): Your journey starts with community. In this opening experience, you connect with dedicated mentors, explore university resources, and build friendships with fellow scholars who share your drive to leave things better than you found them.
Turning Curiosity into Tangible Solutions
The 18-hour Chancellor’s Honors Minor curriculum fits into your four-year undergraduate timeline and gives you practical tools to think creatively, work with others, and lead with confidence.
The Heart of the Minor: The Problem-Solving Sequence (6 Credit Hours)
Across three semesters, you build leadership, critical thinking, and design skills through a shared innovation sequence.
- UNHO 207: Complex Problems and Human-Centered Design (2 Credits):You’ll dive into the messy, real-world problems that matter most, climate change, poverty, inequality, and discover why quick fixes don’t work. In this course, you’ll learn design thinking alongside a multidisciplinary team, exploring local complex problems from the perspective of the people most affected. You’ll move beyond assumptions to truly understand what’s happening on the ground, collaborate with peers to develop thoughtful solutions, and receive constructive feedback that shapes your thinking.
- UNHO 307: Complex Problems and Innovation (2 Credits): You’ll build on what you learned in UNHO 207 and shift your mindset from problem analysis to possibility recognition. Working with multidisciplinary teams, you’ll examine root causes of complex local problems and identify creative opportunities where innovative thinking can spark real progress. You’ll develop breakthrough solutions that have the potential to make tangible impact.
- UNHO 367: Complex Problems and Tennessee Opportunities (2 Credits):You’ll bring your ideas to life. In this course, you’ll use human-centered design to engage complex problems across Tennessee and beyond. You’ll identify a problem you’re passionate about, work in self-directed teams to build a project management plan, and utilize iterative design to test concepts and refine prototypes. You’ll gather honest feedback, learn from faculty and peer mentors, and discover how adaptability and persistence shape better, more resilient solutions.
The Voice: Powerful Communication (6 Credit Hours):
Great ideas need clear advocates. You will complete two honors communication courses approved for Vol Core, UTK’s undergraduate education requirements.
- Honors Written Communication (3 Credits): Learn to articulate complex thoughts with clarity, precision, and emotional resonance.
- Honors Oral Communication or Applied Oral Communication (3 Credits): Develop the public speaking presence and interpersonal confidence to lead discussions, pitch solutions, and inspire action.
The Discipline: College & Departmental Honors Depth (3 Credit Hours)
- Choose one advanced honors course in your major or in an area connected to your academic interests. This course helps you pair deep subject knowledge with a broader design-thinking mindset.
The Culmination: Your Honors Capstone, Choose One (3 Credit Hours)
- UNHO 397: Honors Group Capstone: You’ll collaborate with a team on a meaningful project centered on issues that matter to your community, whether locally in Tennessee, statewide, nationally, or globally. You’ll develop thoughtful recommendations grounded in real-world research and design thinking, then present your ideas directly to university and community leaders who have the power to turn your vision into action. This is your opportunity to make a tangible impact beyond the classroom.
- UNHO 497: Honors Capstone (or approved departmental equivalent): You’ll undertake a substantial capstone project that represents the pinnacle of your University Honors experience. Whether through rigorous scholarly research, an internship that challenges you professionally, meaningful service work, a transformative global experience, or a creative artistic endeavor, you’ll bring together everything you’ve learned and grown into. This is your opportunity to pursue work that genuinely matters to you and demonstrate the breadth and depth of your development as both a learner and a contributor to the world.
- Approved college or departmental capstone (variable credit hours)
A High Standard of Excellence with Comprehensive Care
As a Chancellor’s Honors scholar, you will stay engaged in campus life, take part in meaningful community service, and maintain a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.5.
We also know that ambitious goals come with challenges. If you face an academic hurdle or personal setback, you will not navigate it alone. Honors coaches, academic resources, and peer support can help you reset, rebuild confidence, and stay on track toward honors graduation.
When you graduate with Chancellor’s Honors recognition, you leave with more than an honors medallion and a transcript notation. You carry a portfolio of work, a network of relationships, and the confidence to keep leading with purpose.