Scholar Programs
The College's Scholar Programs are interdisciplinary learning opportunities for students at different points in their academic journey.
They include the Fenwick Scholar Program, the college's highest academic honor.
Our Scholar Programs
The College has three scholar programs students can enroll in, or apply for, at different times in their academic journeys at Holy Cross.
The College Scholars Program
A dynamic, interdisciplinary, honors thesis program that emphasize the community and conversation that makes students’ advanced projects possible. Students can apply in the spring of their sophomore year and participation begins in the fall of their third year.
Crucial Questions Seminars
These seminars for second-year students take up big, interesting questions, and are standalone courses not connected to any other program. The pilot course for the initiative will be taught in the spring of 2026.
Fenwick Scholar Program
Fenwick scholars design, with one or more advisors, a program of independent research or a project that will stand in for most of the curriculum for their senior year.
I don't think there are many other colleges that provide this type of opportunity to basically do what is graduate work. This is my main priority for the year; it’s unbelievable and truly unique.
Max Hendrix '23
Fenwick Scholars
The Fenwick Scholar Program continues to provide the highest academic honors the College bestows.
Scholars pursuing advanced, independent projects connect with other members of their cohort, meeting every other week to share works-in-progress, and supporting one another with challenging questions and insights.
Fenwick Stories
College Scholars Program
The College Scholars Program provides advanced opportunities for students to think independently, make connections with peers and faculty across the College, and take up the special challenge of contributing original scholarly or creative work to one or more disciplines.
The program includes participation in an honors seminar for one semester, the Scholars Colloquium for four semesters and thesis writing for two semesters.
From the Scholars
Claire Wolf '25
"The College [Scholars] program is an invitation to interdisciplinary thinking. It’s not just about you, it’s about your peers who are studying different things and are experts, in their own sense, of different thoughts and different ideas. It’s an opportunity to collaborate on them with those ideas as well."
Jonathan Demontagnac '25
"You have access to more professors, you have access to more of your peers that are all similarly focused in their discipline. Whether I’m a bio major or an English major, we’re both doing research, so you have this group of kids who are working toward a similar goal. So you kind of build your own community within the program."