Brian Williams

Welcome to the Templeton Honors College!

Since its founding in 1999, the Templeton Honors College has been committed to forming select students in the classic tradition of Christian liberal arts education. This tradition was begun by early Christians in North Africa and Asia Minor, developed in monasteries and universities during medieval Europe, and was carried into the modern era by educators like John Henry Newman, Anna Julia Cooper, and C. S. Lewis. It is now sustained by the Templeton Honors College through our curriculum and community built around great questions, great books, and great conversations. See our Undergraduate Great Questions Curriculum Guide here!

Templeton’s sequence of carefully designed and integrated seminars represent an alternative way for intellectually ambitious undergraduate students to meet their general education requirements at Eastern University. This means every major Eastern offers is compatible with the Templeton Honors College, from Data Science to Philosophy, Dance to Nursing, Biochemistry to Business, Theatre to Theology. The Templeton Honors College prepares students to become wise and virtuous servants and leaders no matter what profession they pursue or where in the world God calls them. 

At Templeton all the questions are on the table, especially the permanent human questions: What is a good life? Why is there suffering? What is justice? What is a flourishing society? Does beauty matter? What is knowledge? How do I love my neighbor? And who is God? But we don’t ask these questions in a vacuum; rather we ask them in a community shaped by the spiritual and intellectual practices of the historic Christian faith and characterized by contemplative leisure, vigorous study, and loving wonder. 

The practice of education as "holistic formation for the sake of human flourishing" carries through each academic program offered within the Templeton Honors College, including:

  • The high school Summer Scholars Program for rising juniors and seniors,
  • An Undergraduate General Education Program, and
  • A Master of Arts in Teaching for classical school educators.

You can learn much about life in the Templeton Honors College through our website, but I would encourage you to visit our beautiful campus, sit in on a class, and meet the scholars and students who make this a truly exceptional place.

-Dr. Brian A. Williams

“Our motto, CUM GRATIA OFFICIUM ["with grace comes responsibility"], points to our guiding principle of Christian stewardship. In the Templeton Honors College we call our students away from mediocrity, irresponsibility, cynicism, and ingratitude and into lives of Christian stewardship. We remind them that their education liberates them to know the true, do the good, love the beautiful, worship the holy, and serve their neighbors by any means ready to hand.

As Jesus declares in Luke 12: "From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked."”