Academic Guide for Undergraduate Students

The Dean’s Distinguished Honor List and Dean’s Honor List, calculated twice yearly, recognize students who have attained high GPAs during the previous term. (“Term” is defined as a semester for full-time students (12 earned credits or more) and the previous 12-month period (including summer) for part-time students. Part-time students must have earned 12 credits during the previous 12 month period to qualify for either Honor List.) Students are placed on the Dean’s Distinguished Honor List with a GPA of 3.9 or higher. The Dean’s Honor List consists of students with a term GPA of 3.67 to 3.89.

Seniors with a 3.60 average in courses in their major and a 3.00 cumulative average are eligible to be considered for departmental honors. Those with outstanding records are graduated cum laude (3.67 cumulative average), magna cum laude (3.78) and summa cum laude (3.90). All undergraduate Arcadia University coursework is included in consideration for graduation honors. All transfer students with 60 or more Arcadia University credits are eligible for honors.

Phi Kappa Phi

The primary objective of the national honor society of Phi Kappa Phi is to recognize and encourage superior scholarship in all academic disciplines. Phi Kappa Phi is an honor society, not an honorary society or fraternity. Membership is earned by meeting criteria established by the national organization. Undergraduate students may be considered for election to Phi Kappa Phi if they have senior status, have a minimum of 24 graded semester hours at Arcadia University, and are in the upper 10 percent of their class, or if they are in their junior year and are scholastically in the upper 7.5 percent of their class.

Arcadia University also has established chapters of the following professional honor societies that elect to membership students with exceptional interest and achievement in special fields:

• Kappa Delta Pi (Education)
• Phi Alpha Theta (History)
• Phi Beta Delta (International Studies)
• Pi Delta Phi (French)
• Pi Sigma Alpha (Political Science)
• Psi Chi (Psychology)
• Sigma Beta Delta (Business Administration)
• Sigma Delta Pi (Spanish)
• Sigma Tau Delta (English)
• Sigma Zeta (Computer Science and Mathematics)

Undergraduate and Graduate students are recognized for academic excellence at Honors Convocation, an annual academic event held each spring. Special awards and prizes are awarded to students in recognition of their outstanding academic achievement.

In cooperation with The American University, Arcadia University participates in The Washington Semester Programs that are designed to give selected undergraduates a better understanding of national and international affairs through a study of government in action. Students spend one semester at The American University during their junior or senior year and register for one of several formal programs: The Washington Semester in National Government, The American Politics: Public Law Semester, The Foreign Policy Semester, The Peace and Conflict Resolution Semester, The Economic Policy Semester, The Washington Journalism Semester, The Criminal Justice Semester or The Art and Architecture Semester. The programs combine seminars, internships and research in a full semester of academic work in Washington, D.C. The student’s enrollment remains at Arcadia University and financial aid is available.

There are many ways to fulfill the Global Connections Experience – as close by as the Won Buddhist Temple in Glenside or as far away as Capetown, South Africa. In each case, students are engaged in a sustained, semester-long cross-cultural experience and are involved in ongoing reflection during the experience (typically through enrolling in GCR 101).

Students can participate in courses on the Glenside campus that have an experiential component in order to fulfill the Global Connections Experience. If a student participates in a course-based experience, he or she is expected to complete 40 additional experiential hours either in the same community as the course-based experience or in a context or organization that addresses the same issue or topic the student is exploring. Most of these experiences also include the Global Connections Reflection (GCR) within the course. Some of the courses currently available that include this experiential component include:

• ID 228: Shakespeare with Seniors 
• ID 330: Inside Out Prison Exchange Program 
• ID 325: Artist in the Community
• ID 226: Teen UpRise Mentoring Experience
• RE 114: Living Religions of the World

The University also has opportunities that combine short-term study away with a local or online semester-long sustained experience. Some of these have included GFS and Preview courses that include short-term travel to Dominica, Ecuador, Chile, Ghana, and Los Angeles.

GCR 101 - Global Connections Reflection (2 credits, fall, spring, summer): This course is the companion course to the Global Connections Experience (unless the GCR reflection component is embedded in a 4-credit course and coded as "GR" on the course schedule). This is a key Curricular Experience in Arcadia’s Undergraduate Curriculum. All students complete this course while engaging in an experience in a cultural context different from the one in which they grew up (locally, nationally or internationally). This course assists students in reflecting on the interconnections, interdependence, and inequality they encounter during the experience in working to understand the world and their place in it. This course should be completed before student's second semester of their senior year. International students are expected to complete GCR 101 by the end of their first year at Arcadia. Their Arcadia experience is their study abroad. If students fail GCR 101 they must take the class again with a different international or local experience. Students cannot complete GCR 101 retroactively. 

Co-requisites: While taking this course, students must be involved in an approved Global Connections Experience. There are no prerequisites. For further questions about any of the domestic global course offerings or options, please contact the Director of Global Learning.