College Distinction provides exceptional current Arkansas Tech students an opportunity to challenge themselves academically and gain recognition for their outstanding work in the college classroom. Students with at least sixty hours of college credit and thirty hours of course work at Arkansas Tech with a minimum 3.5 GPA are invited to participate in the program. Students who accept the invitation to pursue College Distinction will have the opportunity to take two courses designated as distinction courses. The first is an enrichment course. This course provides an extra educational experience related to the student’s field of study and could include, among other experiences, study abroad, internship, service learning, or mentor-guided research. The second is an enhanced capstone course. This course demonstrates a student’s ability to work at an exceptional level in a given field and is enhanced by an advanced or accelerated curriculum.

Students’ successful completion of the course requirements and a graduating GPA of 3.5 or better will allow for graduation “with distinction.” This will be noted on student transcripts and diplomas.

Each department will identify distinction courses for each major.

Once a student has completed a College Distinction Letter of Intention in Communication and Journalism, the student, his or her advisor, and the Communication and Media Studies department head will designate two classes to fulfill College Distinction course requirements: an enrichment course and an enhanced capstone course. Any course offering internship, service learning, advanced research or study abroad may be used for the three hour enrichment course requirement. Courses typically designated for enrichment credit include JOUR 4093 Internship, COMM 4993 Special Project, and TH 4543 Senior Project. Regular capstone courses that are modified by the professor to contain special assignments for college distinction can be used to fulfill the enhanced capstone requirement (for example: to meet college distinction requirements, students taking the capstone course in Speech Communication may have the additional assignment of presenting their research at a professional or student conference). JOUR 4883 serves as the capstone for Journalism majors (all three concentrations), COMM 4003 serves as the capstone for  Communication majors, and TH 4263 for Theatre majors. Other courses may fulfill the enrichment and capstone requirements with the permission of the Communication and Media Studies department head. Courses meeting college distinction requirements will be designated on the student’s degree audit.