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 year-long 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, including both research manuscripts 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.