Honors College

The Honors Integrated Minor in Human Rights and Resources (HRR) is an interdisciplinary program focusing on how the unequal distribution of cultural and natural resources shapes human experience. The minor introduces students to the legal and philosophical basis for human rights as well as to paradigms that challenge and disrupt what has become our default moral language for thinking about human community.

Students enrolled in the minor will thus gain expertise in the traditional language of human rights, exploring the various legal, historical, and political dynamics that have inflected our claims for rights. Grounded in the observation that meaningful conversation about human rights cannot be had without concurrent conversations about ecology, coursework in the minor will also give students the opportunity to probe the potentials and limits of traditional approaches in addressing the intensifying environmental pressures of our twenty-first century present.

The intellectual spaces of the minor reflect the diversity of disciplines that engage with human rights, including medicine, the life sciences, law, film studies, religious studies, literature, and indigenous ways of knowing. Exploration of these fields inside and outside of the classroom will give students both theoretical backing and motivation for their own future engagements with their communities and the world at large.

The minor is open to students in any major and includes three distinct tracks: Utah, Mexico, and Peru.

The Utah version of the minor includes an intensive field experience during Fall Break 2023 to locations such as Bears Ears, the west side of Salt Lake City valley, and the Navajo Nation.

The Mexico and Peru tracks include 4 weeks of international coursework and language instruction in Oaxaca and Mexico City / Cusco and Lima during Summer 2024.

Both incoming and current Honors students can apply.

The Mexico and Peru tracks include 4 weeks of international coursework and language instruction in Oaxaca/Mexico City and Cusco/Lima during Summer 2024.

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The minor is directed by Christopher Mead. Please feel free to email me if you have questions about the minor or application process.