Honors Seminars are designed to foster discussion, collaboration, and mutual discovery among students and faculty. Restricted to no more than 20-25 students, Honors Seminars typically allow for a more sophisticated and interdisciplinary examination of the subject of the course than is common in "regular" courses. They use more written forms of evaluation rather than terse objective testing such as multiple choice, and, with rare exceptions, satisfy University general-education requirements.

Entering Honors freshmen are required to take in their first fall semester an Honors Seminar from a select list of intoductory Honors Seminars that are restricted to entering Honors freshmen. These Honors Seminars satisfy University general-education requirements and introduce Honors students to a general-education area from an international/global, epistemological perspective. Students explore the nature of knowledge with respect to the subject matter, how that knowledge has come to be known, and the role that culture plays in the process.