In 2005, under the leadership of then Associate Dean John Bennett, many of the college’s most accomplished teachers got together and asked the simple question: Are we providing the best possible education for our very best students?
In respect to the curriculum, the answer was largely “Yes.” Even our most talented students didn’t finish Fourier Analysis or Thermo saying they were under-challenged and wishing the class had been harder, gone faster, or covered more material. Although there were some things we could do to improve what happened within the classroom (specialized classes, seminars, etc.), our attention shifted to all those aspects of the educational experience that take place outside of the classroom: research, service, community, internships, leadership and personal development.
With all of this in mind, the College of Engineering formally committed itself to creating an Honors Program that would serve and challenge its best students.
In the Spring of 2006, Professor Scot Douglass was appointed the Program’s first Faculty Director. Since then, we have been very busy…
Meet our Director
Dr. Colin West
EHP Director and EHP Alum
“We celebrate and support well-rounded students with many different interests, skills, and identities: not despite their engineering specialization but precisely because it makes them better engineers and better human beings.”
Colin’s Background
Colin grew up in Fort Collins, CO where he was active in competitive speech and debate, played tennis and racquetball, and was the keyboardist for local band PocketChange.
He attended CU Boulder on a Boettcher Scholarship and was a member of the inaugural class of the Engineering Honors program in 2006. In college, he was active in the PLC program and the Model United Nations team. In 2009, he was one of the first seniors to live in EHP’s residential program, which at the time was housed in Andrews Hall. He graduated in 2010 with degrees in Engineering Physics and Applied Mathematics.
Colin attended graduate school at the C.N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, housed at Stony Brook University, where he worked in computational quantum information theory. He was an HHMI-funded postdoctoral fellow at UC Santa Cruz from 2016-2018 and an instructor for the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science, where he developed a deep interest in making science and technology relatable to the general public. This interest in teaching led him to return to the physics department at CU–a world leader in physics pedagogy– in 2018. He rejoined EHP, becoming the second person to serve as its faculty director, in 2023.
Colin’s Interests
Colin is a multidisciplinary researcher who has published articles in geophysics, astrophysics, particle physics, quantum theory, and physics pedagogy. His current areas of focus are in computational approaches to simulating quantum systems, including simulating novel topological phases of matter, and in teaching techniques to improve student experiences in high-enrollment physics courses.
Because life is bigger than just academics, Colin enjoys music–especially The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, REM, The Decemberists, and Twenty One Pilots–and movies (especially Rebecca, Lost in Translation, Whiplash, and Us). His hobbies include cooking, distance running, poker, escape rooms, crossword puzzles, and origami.
Meet our Founder
Professor Scot Douglas, Ph.D
EHP Founder and Faculty in Residence
“There is something both unique and gratifying in being able to sit down with a small group of bright engineering students and explore great expressions of the human spirit… to listen to engineering students wrestle together over the serious questions of our existence.”
Scot’s Background
Born and raised the son of an electrical engineer in Chicago, he studied genetics as an undergraduate with minors in Chemistry, Physics and Math (University of Arizona), theology as a master’s student (Dallas Seminary), and earned his Ph.D in comparative literature (CU-Boulder).
Professor Douglass has enjoyed teaching in the Herbst Program for Ethics, Engineering & Society since 1995, currently teaching classes in and outside of Andrews. Very concerned with the art of teaching, Scot attempts to make his classes productive, interactive learning spaces within which students wrestle with the texts, each other and him.
His experience also includes teaching chemistry and physics in a private high school; theology and literature at a college in Ghana, West Africa; and literary thinking classes for professional engineers at Hewlett-Packard facilities in Loveland and Fort Collins.
Research Areas
Committed to making literature and philosophy both accessible and relevant, Scot’s research interests are in philosophical hermeneutics (how texts mean what they mean), language’s ability to communicate meaning, the Classical tradition and the intersections of literature, philosophy, psychology and theology in 19th and 20th-century literature.
He has published numerous articles and co-edited two volumes on reading ancient texts. His first book, Theology of the Gap: Cappadocian Language Theory and the Trinitarian Controversy, explores theories of language (primarily those of the Cappadocian Fathers) surrounding the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy and their relationship to twentieth-century theories of hermeneutics as articulated by Heidegger, Ricoeur, Vattimo and Derrida. He is currently finishing a book on Dostoevsky.
A Brief History
2006: The Inaugural Class
The inaugural class of first-year incoming Honors Students was comprised of 24 students, all by invitation. This entering class achieved numerous honors and awards, including both the College’s 2010 Outstanding Graduate and Silver Medal winners. Two-thirds of them were involved in research as undergraduates, at least half completed industry internships, and half were involved in peer-mentoring and leadership. At least 8 students went on to complete PhD programs (Caltech, Stanford, UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, NC State and Stony Brook), 10 finished Masters degrees (Cambridge, Harvard, Columbia, Colorado, etc.), Graduates of this class are now working in industry, teaching in universities and high schools, and practicing as physicians and lawyers across the country.
2007: Establishment of the Residential Component
In partnership with Campus Housing, EHP proposed what would become the University of Colorado’s first residential college including a residential faculty.
While Andrews Hall was being renovated for over $15 million dollars to be the future home of the EHP Residential College, the 45 members of the entering class of 2007 moved into a wing of Hallett Hall, to be followed the next year by the 65 members of the entering class of 2008.
2009: The Opening of Andrews Hall
In the Fall of 2009, EHP Director Scot Douglass and his family moved into Andrews Hall along with 70 second through fourth year EHP students and a new incoming class of 66 students. Closely partnering with the Engineering Honors Program and filling the remainder of Andrews Hall were engineering students from the BOLD Program—a program committed to diversity, leadership and opportunity.
During its first year, Andrews Hall had the highest GPA on campus, the greatest number of academic programs, the highest number of students involved in intramural sports, the largest in-house tutoring program, 4 research programs, ran the TEAMS engineering outreach program in 8 elementary schools, did over 7000 hours of volunteer service, and had its own garage band, jazz ensemble and string quartet. Far from being NERDFEST 2009-2010, it was a place of incredible diversity and talent (cooking, musical, athletic, artistic) in which 45% of EHPers were involved in research.
2010 and Beyond: Crafting a Culture of Excellence that is Ambitious without Being Competitive
Committed to creating a space and culture of being ambitious without being competitive, EHP students (now numbering over 500 from over 6000 engineering students during the same time period) have done very well—having won many awards and prestigious scholarships; done incredible research in amazing places; been involved around the world in development projects; run summer outreach programs; landed great internships; and won several named first places in the International Mathematical Modeling Contest. They have done all of this while being committed to enjoying each other, working together and having fun.
In Fall 2015, we expanded our first year entering class from 55 students to 80.
2023: The Launch of Engineering Connections
In the fall of 2023, the College of Engineering and Applied Science introduced a holistic residential academic experience for all of its first-year students designed to build a strong engineering community that supports student success and retention through graduation. As a part of this program, EHP was moved to occupy the top two floors of Williams Village North bringing our rich history and community with us. Learn More