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Purpose
Honors Option courses allow students to enroll in any course and receive Honors credits except in courses that already have a specially designated Honors section. Students may add an Honors Option for a general course section with the consent of the course instructor and the Honors Director.
Summary
The contracted work is about adding depth, not about piling on more papers although having more or longer papers or doing extra reading may be the natural result of the work thoughtfully agreed on. Often students investigate a particular area or read research articles related to some course sub-topic(s). It is expected that the student will meet with the faculty member outside of class-how regularly depends on the nature of the contracted work-to discuss the work and receive feedback and guidance. In addition, as part of the effort to erase the divide between Honors and other students as well as to enhance the educational experience of all students, an important provision of a contract is some means of sharing what the student is learning with the rest of the class. Examples include the Honors student's reporting to the class on some aspect of his or her work, leading class discussion once a week with key questions, or providing tutoring to other students.
Once a faculty member and a student agree on a contract, the student needs to bring a copy of it to the Honors Director for review and feedback. When the contract is finalized, the faculty member, the Honors Director and the student sign a form, one copy of which goes to the Honors Director, one to the faculty member, one to the student, and one to the Registrar.
Examples of contracts
1. Translate a Spanish cookbook and make a meal from that; serve meal to class and discuss Spanish cuisine of a particular country or tutor peers in Spanish.
2. Investigate scholarship in Spanish on gender relations and create a bibliography to supplement the professor's bibliography on gender scholarship in English; report on patterns of similarities or differences in scholarship in Spanish versus English.
3. Read professional articles on a particular topic, meet bi-weekly to discuss articles with professor and professional or scholarly standards, tools, methods, and the like; create annotated bibliography and report on learning to peers.
4. Do background reading in preparation for a conference; attend conference; report on experience to peers.
5. Create videos of minority signers; analyze differences from mainstream, white signing; present findings to peers.
6. Assist professor in lab research or other research and present to peers on what was learned about how a researcher in a particular field or in a particular methodology works.
7. Create a service learning component to a course; involve peers or report to peers.
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