Units Supporting Undergraduate Research

Honors Program

The Honors Program is home to USU students brave enough to take Horace’s ancient challenge: Sapere Aude – or Dare to Know. The Honors Program creates a community of dynamic, ambitious, creative students who want not simply to earn a degree at USU but also to create a life-changing experience for themselves.

Honors students all learn to integrate the four key parts of an Honors education at USU: critical thinking, independent research, interdisciplinary learning and civic engagement. Our students want to — and will — change the world.

Why Honors?

The Honors Program helps students to create this educational experience by offering many benefits, including:

Advising: Honors students get early priority registration and personalized advising with a Faculty Honors Advisor in the student’s major department and the Honors Program Coordinator and Advisor.

Funding: Honors students qualify for Honors-only financial support from the Honors Research Fund (covers research or conference travel and/or materials), the Honors Study Abroad Fund (supports international travel for academic study or service projects) and Honors Scholarships (fund academic and/or housing costs for select Honors students).

Coursework: Honors students enjoy enhanced classroom experiences, featuring Honors General Education Seminars that meet USU requirements and create student collaboration about real world problems; Practical Application Credit for extracurricular academic projects such as service, study abroad, internships, research and creative work; and Thesis/Capstone Projects designed by Honors students to showcase their research and creative skills to future employers or graduate programs.

Community: Honors students join a vibrant community of students and faculty fostered by monthly Faculty-Student Socials that allow students to practice networking skills and develop connections across disciplines; a Campus Calendar and weekly updates about upcoming events on campus; and Honors House in the Living and Learning Community, which is conveniently located next to the Honors office, lounge and classroom.

Contact the Honors Office for more information on how to be a part of this program.

Study Abroad

Visit the Study Abroad.

With USU’s study abroad program, students are able to gain a global perspective by being exposed to different worldviews. Students are expected to have an expanded degree of multicultural competence and an appreciation for similarities and differences in thought around the world.

To develop a global perspective, students are encouraged to study and research into various aspects of human thought, behavior, and culture while they are in another country. Focusing on the people’s beliefs, knowledge, and behaviors can provide valuable insights that may help shape the student’s career like Quinney Scholar, Hesper Kohler:

“While studying abroad in Fiji, my focus changed from marine resources to freshwater quality. In Fiji, I did an independent research project on E. coli levels in a river that went through Suva. The water quality was poor, yet the people had to use it for daily activities such as bathing, and harvesting fish and shellfish. In the squatter settlements, the people had to drink the water.

“Seeing how the people depended on the river helped me realize what I want to do with my life. After I graduate from USU, I will apply to Oregon State University to their Environmental Science Masters Degree and focus on Water Resources. I want to work with educational outreach and help communities use their freshwater in the most sustainable way. I will develop programs with community members on how to clean their water supply, and help them understand the environmental and human relationships that depend on managing the water supply.”

USU Libraries

The main USU library is the Merrill-Cazier Library, located in the center of the Logan campus. Librarians are available for in-person research help at the Information Desk from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. most weekdays.

On the library homepage, you can get personalized help from librarians and use hundreds of research databases to help you find the information you need. Librarians are available from our homepage via instant messenger chat from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. most weekdays. Additionally, you can call for assistance at 435-797-2678, text at 435-227-5420 or send an email to Library.Help@usu.edu.

The two major types of research tools the library has to help you discover information are:

Library Catalog: The library catalog includes all holdings, and you can find it linked on the homepage. If you’re looking for a book, journal or magazine you can just do a search for the title. Note: The catalog does NOT index articles, so searching for an article title will not work. To locate a known article, search for the journal/magazine/newspaper title in which it was published. To discover new articles, use databases.

Databases: If you need to find articles about a certain topic, databases are the way to go. Databases will help you discover articles, proceedings and book chapters. The library subscribes to hundreds of databases. You can find them by clicking on “Articles & Databases” on the homepage. They are arranged by subject area, though you can also search in one of the great multi-disciplinary databases, like Academic Search Premier.

Digital Commons: Utah State University’s (USU) Institutional Repository (IR) supports open access initiatives and contributes to USU’s intellectual output and engagement with global scholarly resources. The purpose of this repository is to archive and provide open access to the scholarly works, research, reports, publications, teaching materials, workshops, and lectures produced by USU faculty, staff, students, and organizations.

Keep in mind that doing searches for academic information isn’t always as easy as searching Google. If you ever get frustrated in your searches, contact the library! You can visit the Information Desk in the Merrill-Cazier Library, or call, text or email.