Honors courses offer an exciting opportunity for faculty members to work with a small class of excellent, motivated students!
Professors interested in proposing a seminar for the Lewis Honors College or a departmental Honors section are encouraged reach out to Dr. Ryan Voogt, director of undergraduate studies (DUS) to discuss options and get the process started.
Courses taught with an HON prefix are perfect when no prerequisites are required, the course is for all majors, and has interdisciplinary components. The “Honors” component of the class relates to critical thinking, expanding perspectives, interdisciplinary inquiry, ethical and moral questions, student-choice, independent work, presentations, and the like. HON courses are only available to enrolled Lewis Honors College students.
Honors courses in the departments, by contrast, may be made available to any student regardless of Honors status, and they may be disciplinarily-focused and require conceptual or methodological prerequisites or advanced standing within a course of study or major. For these courses, the Honors component typically refers to the depth or autonomy presented to students.
Making Honors course agreements—where a student takes a non-Honors course but makes an agreement with the professor whereby they can obtain Honors—is the best course of option when the number of Honors students is singular or low. See here for instructions on Honors Course Agreements.
Interested in submitting an Honors course proposal?