Honors College Opening Fall 2024

In addition to business and finance, philanthropist Dana Hamel is passionate about architecture and design, an interest that began when he was in college. “Probably the thing that had the biggest effect on me other than business school was a course on art and architecture, and I’ve gotten more interested in that over the years.”

That interest fuels his input on the Hamel Honors and Scholars College building, set to open in the fall of 2024, which will launch the new college for the next generation of Wildcats.

Thanks to Hamel’s $20 million gift, it will significantly expand in-class and extracurricular opportunities for honors students and Hamel Scholars and create a dedicated living-learning community for high-achieving students on campus inside a renovated Huddleston Hall and in select residence hall space.

Hamel shared with President Jim Dean an article about well-known architect James Stewart Polshek’s philosophy that architecture should have a purpose for its existence relative to how it affects people: “In contrast to a monument, a building’s purpose should be to increase people using it, and I think that’s the case for a university. Yesterday’s gone, it’ll never come back, but tomorrow will always be there. I think if you want kids to look toward the future … you put them in an atmosphere that looks like tomorrow.”

Hamel’s vision, combined with that of the university, is making the Honors College a new differentiator for the state’s flagship public university, providing high-achieving students an enriched academic experience in a significant revision and expansion of UNH’s current honors program. It will emphasize connections between academic and experiential learning, enable students to create individualized honors experiences and offer greater opportunities to work with faculty mentors from all UNH colleges.

The renovated Huddleston Hall space will also provide increased opportunity for interaction and teamwork among honors students, faculty and staff, featuring student “huddle” spaces for co-working and collaboration, seminar rooms, event space and common gathering areas for socializing and dining.

Hamel’s gift will also enable growth of the Hamel Scholars program, which provides merit scholarships and special programming to exceptional students who have demonstrated academic excellence, leadership and community service. The gift will create new programming that will allow students to build connections with New Hampshire, national and international leaders and institutions, and will help develop their leadership skills through workshops, trainings and experiences. They will also have increased opportunities to engage with the Hamel Scholars alumni community.

“At UNH, we pride ourselves on prioritizing the undergraduate experience above everything else – that’s in the institution’s DNA. The Hamel Honors and Scholars College will allow us to strengthen that even further,” Catherine Peebles, director of the UNH honors program, says. “The new Honors College curriculum will be a lot more hands-on, a lot more experiential, with our students getting out into the world and into our community.”

www.unh.edu/honors