UK preparing to construct new Honors dorm

News Staff

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UK is set to begin construction on the new Honors residence hall this week.

The construction period is from mid-February 2016 to early August 2017, according to information provided by the UK public relations staff.

Students will reside in Lewis Hall beginning in fall 2017. The building will be at the corner of University Drive and Hilltop Drive.

Kentucky native Thomas W. Lewis donated $23.5 million last fall to pay for programming and faculty, and establishing Lewis Hall, which would be the new dormitory for honors students.

The new dorm will cost about $37 million, be five stories tall, have 346 beds and be built by Education Realty Trust, a private developer that has built several dorms at UK.

The number of honors students at UK has grown from 750 to 1,400 in the last five years. The baseline to apply for the Honors Program is a 28 ACT and a 3.5 GPA, although the current average is a 32 ACT and a 3.99 GPA. The competitive program had more than 2,400 applications last year for about 400 spots.

Benefits for participants in the program include priority registration for classes, one-on-one faculty attention, specialized advising, additional resources and an earned Honors designation on the students’ transcripts and diplomas. Each Honors student completes at least 21 hours of Honors courses, which are capped at 20 students.

The Honors pathway program allows students in certain majors to have a more specialize trajectory through the curricula, including Global Scholars, Social Enterprise, Scholars in Engineering and Management and Scholars in Nursing.