Honors Program
Honors Courses
Course Offerings
Honors courses are offered by a number of departments across campus, with a special focus at the present time being on offering an interesting array of honors courses in the University Studies area. A focus on offering the University Studies Honors Courses is so that incoming freshman and sophomores interested in Graduating with University Honors and Honors in a Specific Major, or just University Honors, have opportunities in their early years to satisfy the university studies portion of their honors requirements.
And as time goes on, more and more departments will be bringing on specific academic criteria for Graduating with Honors in a Major. Presently, the following departments offer Honors in a Major: Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, and Fine Arts. If you have an interest in graduating with honors in a major for which there is presently no honors offering, contact the head of your department or the honors program staff for help in getting an offering started for you. You can be the pilot!
Graduating with Honors in one of the three options can necessitate:
- Completing a minimum of 24-36 credits of honors coursework ideally spread across University Studies strands and/or other offerings, as available.
- Completing 4 credits of practicum (HO 209 and HO 409), including a minimum of 1 credit at the upper division level. Scholars document each approved community-based learning activity by completing 1 credit of HO 209 or HO 409. Only activities with a significant leadership component will qualify for HO 409 credit.
- Completion of a senior thesis or creative project as specified by the major area, requiring at least 12 credits of research (HO 401), thesis (HO 403), and/or other appropriate coursework as determined by that major.
See Honors Graduation Options for the specific course requirements for each option.
Important Course Information
Honors course credits satisfy the regular requirements for graduation. They are not over and above the regular requirements.
Some of the honors courses will have prerequisites, but they will not be unique to the honors course. If the regular course has a prerequisite, the honors course will have the same prerequisite.
Course Characteristics
Many of the following characteristics describe a given honors course:
- Small classes
- Interactive lecture
- Discussion-based
- Deeper subject coverage
- Unique practice or assignments
- Critical thinking required
- Need to defend one's position
- Attended by motivated, high achieving students
Finding Specific Honors Courses
Click on the Catalog or Class Schedule links above for more detailed course information.
Other ways to find honors courses include using the attribute filter on the SISWeb class schedule or the advanced search feature on the class schedule website.
Registering for Honors Courses
Students with the honors student status (honors attribute on their student record) can register via SISWeb without an instructors permission. Freshman and sophomores can register early.
Students without the honors student status can ask an honors instructor for permission to attend the honors course of interest and register through the registrar with the add/drop form signed by the professor.
Click this link to download a Winter 2010 Honors Courses Flyer (pdf)
