Presidential Honors Scholarship

The Western Presidential Honors Scholarships for incoming students, established by the Jack and Marilyn MacAllister Foundation, are elite scholarships awarded to Western’s highest achieving and most deserving students, celebrating the ideals of academic excellence and service to the campus and community. Recipients of the Scholarships will be members of the Western Colorado University Honors Program.

Each year two new Presidential Honors Scholarships of $2500 will be awarded to two incoming first-year students.

The following information provides due dates, criteria, and how to prepare your incoming student honors application.

Eligible candidates should have a high school, transfer, or Western Colorado University grade point average of, at minimum, 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. Candidates must also demonstrate leadership qualities or experience and a commitment to intellectual inquiry and academic challenge.
Incoming candidates should submit the following
-A cover letter explaining why you want to be a part of Western’s Honors Program and demonstrating with concrete examples how you have engaged two of our five program values (see below) in your academic or personal life;
-Two letters of recommendation from teachers, guidance counselors, professors or academic advisors which address the student’s accomplishments and suitability for a college Honors Program;
-A copy of your most recent educational transcript;
-A resume of your qualifications, accomplishments, service, extra-curricular activities;
-Any other documentation that would be helpful in evaluating you as a candidate for this Scholarship.

Program values:
-The Good: While scholars may debate the “Form of the Good,” the Honors Program at Western sees it as deeply connected to the purpose and values of a Liberal Arts and Science education. We seek to create opportunities for our students to develop into virtuous, knowledgeable and articulate citizens for whom the pursuit of knowledge is integral to human development.
-Citizenship and Community: We seek to create elite learners without elitism and a cohort of students who learn to develop the deep connection between higher education and citizenship within a supportive academic community. Our community members are highly motivated students, faculty and staff who share an intellectual curiosity about the world around them.
-Interdisciplinarity: Honors courses are designed to promote cross discipline exploration and discovery. You will find students and faculty of a multitude of majors and interests in Honors classes, providing an extremely fertile and complex environment for discussion and analysis.
-Risk taking and autonomy: While our program demands high academic achievement, it does not mean our students play it safe academically. Honors at Western encourages students to take the initiative in the ownership of their education experience. Honors courses present students with opportunities to think for themselves free from internal or -external constraints on intellectual inquiry. We encourage students to take the initiative in their own education and support them in developing the resiliency needed when stepping out of one’s academic comfort zone.
-Social intelligence: It is not enough to be the “smartest one in the room” if you lack the intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence to communicate your ideas and listen to the ideas of others. Our program and its educational opportunities encourages students to develop the capacity to negotiate and navigate complex social and intellectual environments so that Honors students are not just “the smartest ones in the room,” but the most effective communicators and collaborators in the room.