Department website: https://honors.ua.edu/programs/university-fellows-experience/
Following the classical purpose of education, the production of good citizens, the University Fellows Experience strives to prepare the most able and dedicated students at The University of Alabama for remarkable lives of leadership in and service to their community, state, nation, and world. Thomas Henry Huxley wrote, “The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.” Similarly, our mission is to shape and enable students with exceptional innate gifts and abilities to use the knowledge gained for leadership and service. It is expected that throughout their lives, University Fellows will make a difference for the good, again and again.
Upon completing their four-year experience, students should be able to address, through an understanding grounded in practice, the following critical questions pertaining to leadership, scholarship, and citizenship:
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Engaged citizenship: What does caring deeply about the world look like?
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Empathetic, dynamic leadership: What are best practices for effective leadership in today’s highly dynamic and diverse environments?
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Ethical, transformative scholarship: What does it mean to be a transformative ethical scholar?
Admission and Graduation Requirements
Acceptance into the UFE is extremely competitive. A student with a composite ACT score of at least 32 or a SAT score of at least 1400 (verbal and quantitative) and a high-school GPA of at least 3.8 who is accepted into UA by the UFE application deadline will be invited to apply for the University Fellows Experience. A student eligible for the Honors College (minimum 30 ACT/1360 SAT and 3.5 high-school GPA) may be nominated for the University Fellows Experience by a high-school representative or a UA faculty or staff member. The UFE selection committee will consider a candidate's records of academic, extracurricular, service and leadership achievements more heavily than grades and test scores.
To complete the requirements of the Social Innovation and Leadership minor, students must maintain an overall GPA of 3.5 and complete 15 credit hours of UFE coursework, OR 6 UFE-designated courses, plus additional credit hours of approved elective coursework for a total of 18 credit hours.
| Social Innovation and Leadership Minor | Hours | |
|---|---|---|
| UFE 101 | Understanding Poverty | 3 |
| UFE 102 | Social Investing and the Role of Innovation | 3 |
| UFE 201 | SystemicChange:Soc Entrpren | 2 |
| UFE 202 | Soc Innov:Collective Impact | 2 |
| UFE 301 | Leadership and Change: A Global Perspective | 1 |
| UFE 302 | Impacting a Global Society | 1 |
| UFE 303 | Making an Impact | 1 |
| UFE 400 | Magnum Opus Experience (UFE 400 may be repeated as an elective for 3 credit hours ) | 3 |
| Approved Electives | Varies | |
Any 300 level UH course or an approved 300 or 400 level course. UFE 400 may be repeated to fulfill the elective credit requirement. | ||
| Total Required Hours | 18 | |
Contact
For more information, contact The University of Alabama Honors College, University Fellows Experience, Box 870169, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0169; (205) 348-5500; honors.ua.edu.