All-University Commencement Honors Program

The Academic Policy Committee recommends the adoption of the following:

1. Students who receive all-university commencement honors will be awarded the traditional gold cord at the December and May Honors Convocation. These students will have a cumulative grade point average of 3.5 or higher, based on a minimum of 40 credits at UWM.
2. In those schools and colleges in which fewer than 15% of the students have achieved a 3.5 GPA, all university honors would be awarded to approximately the top 15% of the students in that school or college.
3. A criterion GPA (not lower than 3.20) for the top 15% of students in a given school or college would be calculated based on statistics from the previous comparable semester. This means that the honors standards for May graduates would be based on the statistics from the previous year’s May graduates; and similarly, the standards for the December graduates would be based on the previous December’s statistics.

Rationale

Some university-wide standardization of commencement honors is desirable. This proposal, however, does not prevent the various schools and colleges from maintaining, in addition, their own honors program. With regard to the honors standards, a GPA criterion is seen as generally preferable to a percentage criterion because it provides the student with a clearly defined level of achievement. However, a limited application of a percentage criterion is recommended so as to rectify potentially severe inequities among the schools and colleges.