The Intercultural Honors Experience (IHE) is a competitive program designed to help students build a solid intercultural foundation and introduce them to interdisciplinary learning. The program seeks 20 students, primarily freshmen, with strong communication skills, who wish to learn more about other cultures as well as their own.

The core element of the program is completed in the spring: students take a seminar which focuses on a topic or issue of global interest. The 2011-12 seminar, “Educated Guesses: a Global Survey of the Ways We Teach and Learn” will examine the educational systems of several countries within three broad geographical areas: North America (Canada and the U.S.), Europe (the Scandinavian countries and the UK), and Asia (Japan and China). This is a four-hour course and satisfies either the Contemporary Issues (LA112) OR the Intercultural requirement. As part of this course, students present a research paper at a symposium open to the public and are required to organize and complete co-curricular activities.

After completing all these elements of the program and receiving at least a “B” in the seminar, students are eligible for scholarships that they can use to study abroad for a semester. Students will have a choice of study-abroad programs around the world that have either a leadership or an international studies focus.

Application Procedure

In order to be eligible for the Intercultural Honors Experience, you must currently be enrolled at Franklin College, have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 (a high school GPA of 3.0 for freshmen), and must be in your freshman, sophomore, or junior years.

• Submit a completed application form to Lora Roberts, 2nd floor of JCFA, by 4 p.m. on Friday, October 14, 2011.
• Have two reference letters completed by Franklin College faculty members and sent directly to Lora Roberts, JCFA, by 4 p.m. on Monday, October 24, 2011. You must have these faculty members in graded classes (A-F) that are worth a minimum of 3 credit hours.
• Take the entrance exam on Tuesday, October 25, 2011. There will be 4 sittings for the exam in room 245 of the Student Center and you must attend one of those sittings. They are at 8:00, 1:30, 3:00 and 4:30. The exam will take at least one hour.

During the week of October 17, you will be contacted for an interview. Interviews will be held between October 24 and November 4.

Applicants will be notified by November 18, 2011 of the status of their application.

Please keep the following in mind when scheduling your spring classes:

• Since you will not find out if you have been accepted into the IHE until after spring registration commences, register for a full load, as if you were not in the IHE.  If you are accepted into the IHE we will contact you to see if you want to drop a class.
• IHE 100 will be offered on MTRF from 10-10:50. Do not schedule a course other than Contemporary Issues for the same time that the IHE Seminar (IHE 100) is scheduled. If you are accepted into the IHE but have a course conflict that would delay your graduation or hurt your progress in your major, you will be allowed to defer your acceptance to 2012-13.