Webster University and St. Louis Community College to Explore a Joint Admissions Program for Honors Students

Webster University and the St. Louis Community College system have entered into an agreement to make it easier for community college students who are participating in honors programs to transfer those credits to meet the requirements of Webster’s Gleich Honors College.

"The formalization of our relationship with STLCC honors was an obvious next step,” said Emily Thompson, director of Webster’s Gleich Honors College. “The honors transfer students we have worked with in the last few years have contributed to our community in tremendous ways – bringing their experience with research skills and learning services and building on those well as assuming active mentorship roles.”

The Gleich Honors College was launched in 2021 after longtime Webster supporters Marianne and Peter Gleich donated $1 million for the project. In the Honors College, students work together collaboratively and cultivate relationships with different communities, accumulate transnational experiences and practice the intercultural skills required to do so with confidence and sensitivity. Students complete a research project outside their major area of study that requires them to apply different research methodologies to complex problems with the help of a faculty mentor. To graduate with Gleich College Honors, students must complete 18 credit-hours of work in the program.

Under the agreement with the St. Louis Community College, students enrolled in community college honors courses can transfer up to 10 credits to Webster’s Gleich Honors College. The credit hours can come from an official St. Louis Community College honors course or from reflection on work conducted through community service projects completed with Phi Theta Kappa, a national organization for community college students who intend to transfer into a traditional four-year bachelor’s program. Students must have earned an A or B grade in the community college class to qualify for the Gleich credits.  

All undergraduates, including transfer students, can apply to the Gleich Honor College program. Students are chosen through an application process that asks them to reflect on the complexities of global connections, on their own civic responsibilities and on the particular skills that each student hopes to develop through the undergraduate experience at Webster. Once accepted, the Gleich Honors Students are advised by a committee of faculty, staff and administrators who designed the program with the help of current and former students. 

To learn more about the program, visit https://www.webster.edu/gleich-honors-college.