Creating Honors Courses and Independent Studies

Disciplinary Honors courses are an integral part of every Honors College student's experience, providing in-depth study within the major and building close relationships with instructors in the discipline who have the opportunity to work closely with bright, eager students at the early stages of their academic careers.

Commonwealth Honors College joins with Departments and programs campus-wide to offer various types of officially-recognized Honors courses, each type carrying its own set of expectations but all promoting deeper and richer inquiry into the particular field of study. These various possibilities include: 

• Enriched Honors Courses, three- or four-credit Honors courses and seminars taught at the Honors level with a 25-person enrollment capacity. 

• One-Credit Honors Colloquia, weekly one-hour group sessions that augment and enrich standard multi-credit, non-honors UMass courses. 

• Honors Independent Studies may take one of two forms: a supplemental one- or two-credit Honors Independent Study associated with a standard multi-credit, non-honors UMass course (note that "add-on" HI are not permitted with any kind of stand-alone independent study, practicum or internship); or a stand-alone Honors Independent Study of three or more credits.

Enriched Honors Courses

An enriched Honors course carries three or four credits and has a maximum of 25 students in order to provide an environment conducive significant in-class interactions involving discussions and presentations. There should be a significant writing component, preferably with the instructor providing feedback on students’ mid-process drafts of any high-stakes paper, such as a literature review or a final paper. 

The course might extend and enrich the parameters of its non-honors counterpart, be a forum for dialogue and research on an interdisciplinary topic, or take some other form of the instructor's own design providing that it meets the approval of the Honors Curriculum Committee. In any case, it should increase interaction among the students as well as between the instructor and the students. Instructors and students are encouraged to be creative in integrating field research, in-depth readings, oral presentations, group projects, field trips or other modes of Honors learning into the course structure.  

Course proposals are submitted to the UMass Campus Course Management System.

One-credit Honors Colloquia

A one-credit Honors colloquium is an enrichment of an existing non-honors course and should be more than simply “read an extra book” or “write an extra paper.” It involves a dialogue between motivated students and the instructor that either examines in greater detail the topics covered in the two- or three-credit graded course with which it is associated, or reaches beyond the scope of that course by exploring topics not discussed in the larger section. This dialogue should take the form of hour-long (or more, if desired) weekly or biweekly discussions or tutorials, depending on enrollment. In addition, one or more of the following options might be incorporated to enrich the experience:

• Oral reports 

• Short papers on selected topics, peer reviewed and discussed 

• Development of an annotated bibliography 

• A multi-dimensional group research project 

• Problem-solving sessions 

• In-depth research paper concerning one of the topics in the discussion sessions 

• Field trips to, for example, plays, concerts, museums, conferences, research stations 

A one-credit Honors colloquium may be taken during the same semester as the standard course, or after the course has been taken. In each case, the student must earn a grade of "B" or higher for the course). To fulfill Commonwealth Honors College requirements, a grade of "B" or higher must be earned in the colloquium.

Colloquium proposals are submitted to the UMass Campus Course Management System.

Honors Independent Studies

An Honors Independent Study may take one of two forms:

· A 1- or 2-credit Honors Independent Study course associated with a standard multi-credit, non-honors UMass course, identified by the designation HI in its name, e.g. HIST HI100 ("add-on" HI are not permitted with any kind of stand-alone independent study, practicum or internship).

· A stand-alone Honors Independent Studies course of 3+ credits, identified by the designation ISH in its name, e.g. HIST 396ISH.

HI/ISH Faculty Involvement 

In the case of the HI Honors Independent Study course associated with a regular course, the student initiates the process of creating the course by asking the instructor if they are willing to act as mentor. In the case of the stand-alone ISH Honors Independent Studies course, the student initiates the process by asking a scholarly active faculty member if they are willing to act as mentor. 

Then, following a discussion about the content and nature of the Honors Independent Studies course, schedule of meetings, and how the course is to be graded, the student uploads a proposal to the PATHS website in which responses to specific prompts are entered in a series of dialog boxes. Further details are available on the Honors Independent Study Requirements page of the CHC Handbook.   

ISH Expectations

Honors Independent Studies are expected to be as rigorous as regular Honors courses and to carry a workload equivalent to three hours per credit per week. An Honors Independent Study course of any type must involve frequent interaction between the instructor/mentor and the student. This mentoring component should consist of at least a half hour of one-on-one time per week on average over the semester, and needs to be specified on the Honors Independent Study proposal. 

ISH Standards 

When reviewing an Honors Independent Studies proposal, the instructor must ask, “what makes this an Honors level independent study as compared to a regular independent study?” Qualitative and quantitative enrichment must be evident on the Honors Independent Studies proposal. After submission of the proposal on CHC PATHS by the student, the proposal is reviewed by the faculty mentor, the relevant Honors Program Director and the Academic Standards Committee. Approval by the faculty indicates that the proposed activities meet the requirements specified by the Academic Standards Committee, as detailed on the Honors Independent Studies Requirements web page.  

ISH Deliverables 

Students enrolled in Honors Independent Studies are expected to write papers that are more than a descriptive narrative, contain some original elements, are analytical in nature, stress the synthesis of ideas and information, and feature an extensive bibliography. Where appropriate, the report could be in the format of a disciplinary journal article. However, suitable alternatives to the written report might include an oral report to an appropriate group, a portfolio of artistic renderings, or a proposal for curriculum revision. Any such alternatives must meet the standards of quality and quantity outlined above. 

Departmental Honors and Interdisciplinary ISH 

Departmental Honors Independent Study courses are registered under the offering instructor's home Department. Alternately, students have the option of doing an interdisciplinary Honors Independent Study, which combines topics from more than one area of study. Interdisciplinary Honors Independent Study courses are registered as "HONORS." 

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How to Get Involved in Honors Education

Thank you for your interest in being a part of the Commonwealth Honors College (CHC), whose mission is to provide an enhanced educational experience for motivated and qualified undergraduates. Faculty have major roles in the delivery and oversight of the Honors curriculum, and the success of the program depends critically on the continued involvement of faculty as instructors and mentors, as well as participants in the various committees with responsibility for academic oversight. 

Teaching

Students who are following the Honors curriculum are required to take a minimum number of Honors courses. The College takes the lead on providing the instruction for:

• Honors sections of College Writing (Englwrit 112H)
• Ideas that Change the World (Honors 201H) courses
• Junior year common experience course (Honors 323H), currently How the 1960s Changed America
• One-credit special topic seminars, now called Honors Discovery Seminars (Honors 391AH)

Faculty are needed as instructors for the one-credit special topic seminars, for which RFPs are distributed to all faculty[DF1] . 

Information about Teaching Honors Discovery Seminars

To satisfy the Depth of Study part of the curriculum, students who are following the Departmental Honors track need to take at least two Honors courses in their major, one of which must be at the 300 level or higher. Many Departments do not offer such courses, and so CHC allows students and faculty to create them as needed. 

There is a full range of Honors course possibilities; two popular routes involve Honors Independent Studies (ISH) either as a stand-alone activity or as an enrichment to an existing non-honors course (thereby converting it to an Honors course). In these two cases, students need the help of faculty, first to agree to facilitate the activity and then to help the student craft the proposal for review by the relevant Honors Program Director and the Academic Standards Committee (a sub-committee of the Faculty Senate Commonwealth Honors Council). The College also encourages proposals for yearlong Thesis Seminars, particularly those with an interdisciplinary approach.  

Administration and Service

In terms of service to the institution, faculty can contribute in several ways to the oversight of the Honors curriculum. The most extensive contribution is as an Honors Program Director (HPD). There are about 80 such individuals (looking after about 109 Honors programs), whose responsibilities are set out below. HPDs are appointed by Departments and the duration of the appointment is by mutual agreement between the faculty member and the respective Department Head/Chair. 

Faculty are also invited to serve as members of the Faculty Senate Commonwealth Honors College Council that advises the Dean and oversees policy, curricular matters, and academic standards. Contact the Faculty Senate office if interested. Faculty may also serve as members of the Council committees even if they are not members of the Council. The Academic Standards Committee reviews over 600 proposals of various sorts (independent studies and theses and portfolios) in two review periods each year and needs double-digit membership to manage this in a timely fashion. Please contact the Chair of the Council if interested in serving in this capacity, or helping with the work of one of the other committees (Policy, Program, and Courses).  

Honors College Facts

Each fall, the University admits about 650 students to the Commonwealth Honors College; a further small cohort is admitted through the on-campus admission process, and some transfer students are also admitted. There are about 3,000 students in CHC; further details of numbers can be found on the About page of the CHC website. 

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Stand-alone Honors Independent Study Course Description

The Commonwealth Honors College (CHC) administers stand-alone Honors Independent Study courses (designated ISH)  by first reviewing a proposal submitted by the student and then, on approval, by registering the student into the appropriate course, dealing as necessary with holds, credit-overload permissions and late-adds. 

Approval is not automatic. Each proposal is reviewed by the faculty sponsor, the department Honors Program Director and Academic Standards Committee (ASC), a sub-committee of the CHC Faculty Senate Council, all of whom may (and often do) ask for clarifications, modifications, and revisions. Some proposals are rejected, if the extent of revision needed warrants a fresh start. 

The overarching idea is that such an Honors Independent Study course is an opportunity for a student to become engaged in activities that pursue an aspect of a faculty member’s scholarly activity on the UMass Amherst campus and to be mentored in these activities by a tenure-system, scholarly-active faculty member.  

Thus, the activity must have the characteristic that it has the potential to be a contribution to the relevant academic discourse. The ASC interprets “contribution to the relevant academic discourse” very broadly but does expect that scholarly writing is involved somewhere in the process, even if it is only in the initial proposal. If the final product is not a written report in the form of a disciplinary journal article, the ASC expects that the student will write a reflection piece at the end of the process. If the final product is a written report in the form of a disciplinary journal article, the ASC expects that the student will submit a draft on which the faculty mentor will provide feedback in time for revisions prior to submission of the final version for grading. The ASC also expects that the activity will involve some engagement with relevant primary scholarly sources. 

Just as with standard courses, a student’s performance in an ISH is graded, and as is required practice on the UMass Amherst campus, the grading criteria are to be set out in writing in the syllabus at the start of the semester. As the proposal document submitted to CHC serves as the syllabus for the ISH, the ASC expects to see some description of the grading, and hence there are sections of the proposal that specifically ask for information related to the grading.

An ISH must be, at a minimum, a 3-credit activity, requiring three to four hours of engagement, on average, per credit per week by the student over the course of the semester, together with regular one-on-one meetings with the faculty mentor throughout the semester. The expected frequency is, on average, half an hour per week. When relevant, students are expected to participate in the faculty member’s regular research group meetings. The ASC appreciates the difficulties of scheduling such meetings.

Creating an ISH Proposal 

Although the student is responsible for the submission of the proposal (through the CHC PATHS website), the ASC expects that the student and faculty mentor will collaborate on the creation of the text that is to be uploaded in response to the prompts in each of the four sections. Descriptions of the ISH proposal outline may be found on the Honors Independent Study Requirements page and are also available as pull-down menus in CHC PATHS. Everyone involved should read the text on the landing page of CHC PATHS.

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