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The Clark Honors College participates in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Founded at Temple University in 1997, the program supports learning between people inside and outside the prison to study issues of crime and justice in order to catalyze changes that will make communities more just, inclusive, and socially sustainable. The program has grown from one class of fifteen outside and fifteen inside students to nearly 200 classes and more than 6,000 students participating on a national level.

The Clark Honors College undergraduate experience culminates in the thesis, a required advanced research project completed in the student's major field. Students develop traits that contribute to future success in graduate school, post-graduation careers, and civic commitments. The thesis embodies the defining characteristics of a Clark Honors College education: mental discipline; independence of mind and judgment; capacity to design and execute a complex project; ability to focus and pursue a subject in depth; and skills of analysis, synthesis, and clear writing.

The Clark Honors College values debate in the public space, and inaugurated its summer reading program in 2009. Student Alex Goodell took the lead in organizing the first summer reading program book, Tracy Kidder's Mountains Beyond Mountains (Random House, 2004). Mountains Beyond Mountains follows Dr. Paul Farmer's efforts to grapple with poverty and medical care in Haiti, and addresses such pressing issues as global health, healthcare choices, foreign policy, class struggle, and idealism.