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Overview

The University of Kentucky Lewis Honors College provides an enhanced course of instruction for outstanding, highly motivated students from all programs of study. Honors education is, at its heart, a liberal arts education that, coupled with the resources available at the major research land-grant University of Kentucky, make Lewis Honors College a unique experience. Regardless of major, the fundamental goal of Honors education is to provide all students with a broad, critical intellectual base from which they can then engage more deeply and thoughtfully in their chosen fields while prioritizing their health and well-being.

The mission of the Lewis Honors College is to better the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the world by helping students to explore their purpose, develop intellectually, and lead with integrity.

Honors students, made up of people with different backgrounds and experiences, are innovative, intellectually engaged, and interested in creative thought. They are expected to be citizens of their University and their world and to possess an inquisitive attitude toward a wide range of ideas and intellectual concepts.

News and Events

Lewis Honors College continues ‘Ideas that Matter’ series

This spring, the Lewis Honors College continues its “Ideas that Matter” series, a program connecting students with leading scholars, innovators and changemakers on issues shaping today’s world — from exploring the cost of primates in captivity to how college sports are navigating the implications of the name, image and likeness policy changes, and how comics provide social commentary.

The sound of science: UK researchers translate biology into music

For centuries composers have attempted to mimic the natural world in music. Antonio Vivaldi, in the early 18th century, musically illustrated “The Four Seasons.” Gustav Holst attempted to orchestrate the solar system in his tone poem “The Planets.” And in a famous musical illustration of nature, Sergei Prokofiev assigned themes — and specific instruments — to animal characters in the story of “Peter and the Wolf.”

‘UK at the Half’: December grad looks ahead to Disney

The University of Kentucky celebrated more than 2,000 degree candidates during its December 2025 commencement ceremonies last week, including Brysen Honeycutt, a Lewis Honors College student who earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering.

Honor The Balance: Fuel Your Brain

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Lewis Scholars Lounge

420 Hilltop Ave, Lexington, KY

Lunch & Learn: Teach for America

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Lewis Hall Room U136

420 Hilltop Ave

Donuts and Fruit with the Dean

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Blue Outline Checkerboard

T.W. Lewis

Thomas W. Lewis is a seventh-generation Kentuckian who grew up in Lexington. He graduated from Bryan Station High School in 1967 and the University of Kentucky in 1971 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He received his Master’s in Business Administration in 1973 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Tom began his career in real estate development. After 18 years with four different companies and building upon those experiences, he started his own home building business in 1991 in Phoenix, Arizona. T. W. Lewis Company built approximately 250 homes per year from 1991 through 2011 and received many awards during this period, including America’s Best Builder in 1998 and the National Housing Quality Gold Award in 2009. 

In 2001, Tom and his wife, Jan, formed T.W. Lewis Foundation to support higher education, children and families in need, youth education and a variety of community nonprofit organizations. In 2015, in order to give back to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Tom and Jan made a generous gift to the University of Kentucky to establish the Lewis Honors College. 

Mr. Lewis’ vision for the Lewis Honors College is to provide a world-class Honors experience that is known for the success of its students, the quality of its faculty and curriculum, the respect of its peers and the economic and social progress of the Commonwealth of Kentucky

Tom Lewis