The University Senate unanimously voted to change departmental honors on campus at its meeting on Wednesday following recommendations from the Honors Task Force report last June.

Changes include eliminating departmental honors that are based solely on GPA and creating a regularly maintained document outlining all honors opportunities at the university that will be posted on the registrar’s website.

These changes will be in effect by fall 2019. Seniors graduating this spring will not be affected by this change.

The changes to the GPA-based honors come after inequalities between different departments’ honors. For example, a sociology major at UO needs a 3.4 cumulative GPA, where a biology major needs a 3.3 GPA in upper division credits and an intensive research thesis to receive honors.

Departmental honors are separate from university-wide honors. The Senate also voted to standardize the GPA for earning university-wide honors to be consistent across all quarters of an academic year.

These changes will be in effect by fall 2019 and the academic council will continue working to make more changes to be in effect as the policies are clarified, according to Senate president Chris Sinclair.

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