Honors Program
In accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Arts and Sciences Honors Committee the English department Honors Program is designed "for outstanding students with intellectual initiative and the desire to pursue academic achievement beyond the level of standard course work. Its purpose is to provide these students the opportunity to broaden and deepen their knowledge of the major field."
Eligibility
Honors candidates will be required to earn a 3.5 departmental GPA by the beginning of the fall semester of the senior year and to retain that GPA through the completion of the program. In addition, candidates are to maintain an overall GPA of at least 3.3 while participating in the program.
Declaration of Candidacy
A student who wishes to pursue honors should declare his or her candidacy to the honors coordinator at the end of the second year and must do so no later than the end of the third year. Honors students must begin consulting with the honors coordinator in time to construct a coherent and challenging major curriculum. Students who study abroad will be evaluated on an individual basis.
Course Work
All honors candidates will follow the same set of course requirements as other English majors. In addition, they will designate two of the courses from their major program as honors courses. In each case, the instructor, in consultation with the student and the honors coordinator, will determine an appropriate honors component for the course. In addition, during their senior year honors candidates will enroll in the following
- English 498 Honors Thesis Research (fall semester, ½ unit)
- English 499 Honors Thesis Writing (spring semester, 1 unit)
Thesis
In the spring semester of the junior year before registration for fall courses, the honors candidate will submit a thesis proposal to the honors coordinator. The student should at this point have discussed the proposal with the faculty member he or she intends to work with and received from that faculty member both a commitment to direct the thesis and a letter of recommendation to the honors coordinator. The proposal should, ideally, be developed from work done by the student in a 300- or 400-level English course. It should articulate a line of inquiry that may be related to previous work, but should not simply replicate that work.
The student, in consultation with the thesis director, will produce a minimum of thirty pages of material that is significantly different from the work upon which the proposal is based. The student may, for example, choose to expand a twenty-page seminar paper to a minimum of fifty pages or may choose to develop in at least thirty pages an idea or topic—on which he or she has not yet written or has written only briefly—gleaned from another English course.
Honors students are strongly encouraged to apply for summer research grants from the School of Arts and Sciences Deans’ Office in the spring semester of the junior year and to present their work during their senior year at the Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Symposium.
During the fall semester of the senior year, the student will conduct thesis research under the direction of the thesis director. The student is also strongly encouraged to register for either the English department’s literary theory course (English 351) or the Department of Modern Literatures and Cultures’ contemporary literary theory course (MLC 351) before, or in conjunction with, the thesis research and writing.
During the spring semester, while the student is enrolled in Honors Thesis Writing, the thesis director will meet with the candidate at least one hour per week. The thesis director’s responsibilities will include the following: determining how the thirty pages of thesis writing will evolve from the proposal; reading and commenting upon several drafts of the thesis; instructing the student in research methods; advising the candidate in matters of bibliography; commenting upon and grading the thesis; and, finally, in consultation with the honors coordinator and other readers, determining whether or not the candidate will receive departmental honors. Honors candidates will be expected to do at least six to eight hours of thesis-related work outside the “classroom” per week.
The thesis will be read, commented upon and graded by three readers: the thesis director and two other faculty readers chosen by the thesis director in consultation with the honors coordinator. The thesis director and coordinator may choose to appoint no more than one reader from outside the English department.
Those candidates who earn two grades of “A-” or better on the thesis, and who have satisfactorily met all the other requirements, will automatically be granted departmental honors. Candidates receiving fewer than two grades of “A-” and no grade lower than a “B” on the honors thesis, and who have met all other program requirements, will still be considered for honors by the thesis director and the readers. Should there be a wide discrepancy among the three grades, the coordinator will deliberate with the readers to reach a consensus.
For further information and advice on standards and curriculum, see the honors coordinator.