The Honors Program
The Honors Program
The English Department Honors Program allows both English and Creative Writing majors to deepen and enrich their knowledge of literature and writing beyond what would normally be required by the majors. The program is designed for strong, academically motivated students who wish to advance their skills in research and in writing. Students in the program pursue additional course work and write a senior thesis. The current honors coordinator is Dr. Elizabeth Outka.
Eligibility
To be eligible for admission to the honors program, a student should have 18.5 or more units of completed work, a cumulative GPA of at least 3.3, and a major GPA of 3.5 or higher. A student must also have 3.5 or more units completed in the respective major with evidence of distinguished achievement. A creative writing thesis requires at least two of the 3.5 units be completed within the Creative Writing program, and the two classes would not include the intro to creative writing. In addition, candidates are required to maintain an overall GPA of at least 3.3 and a major GPA of 3.5 while participating in the program. Please note that the honors program is distinct from Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honors Society, which has a different set of eligibility requirements.
Applying to the Program
A student who wishes to pursue honors and who meets the GPA requirements will need to find a director willing to supervise their project and should submit a formal application and proposal in March of the junior year (deadline determined each year). The student should already have shown drafts of the proposal to the faculty member who will be directing the thesis. Applications for Creative Writing majors will also need review and approval by the Creative Writing Committee. Information meetings for qualifying juniors are held in the spring semester. The Honors Program Guide lays out deadlines and requirements in detail.
Course Work
Honors candidates will follow the same set of course requirements as other English or Creative Writing majors. In addition, English majors will designate one 300- or 400-level course from their major program as an Honors Course. The student and the course’s professor will determine an appropriate honors component for the course. An honors component might involve writing a more in-depth paper in a particular area of interest, additional readings, a presentation, or other modifications to a course’s requirements. Creative Writing majors do *not* have this requirement.
During the senior year, all honors candidates must complete the following:
- ENGL or CRWR 498: Honors Thesis Research (fall semester, .5 units)
- ENGL or CRWR 499: Honors Thesis Writing (spring semester, 1 unit)
Thesis Project
Honors candidates must complete a thesis project in their senior year. Several types of projects are possible: (1) a scholarly thesis of about 30-40 pages focused on a key work or works; the thesis should engage with literary criticism and form an original argument. This option is open only to English majors and requires approval by a faculty director; (2) a creative writing thesis consisting of a collection of short stories, poems, or a section of a novel or play; for fiction or non-fiction, about 50-100 pages are expected, and for poetry, about 30-60 pages. This option is open only to Creative Writing majors and requires approval by a faculty director in CW; (3) a combination thesis, consisting of a scholarly treatment of a particular subject (about 15-20 pages) combined with a related creative writing component (about 25-50 pages for fiction or non-fiction, and about 15-30 for poetry); this option may be open to English or Creative Writing majors but requires advanced permission from the department. If a student is expanding an earlier paper or project into a thesis, about thirty new pages of writing are required.
Typically, the student will complete the research for the project in the fall term of the senior year and will write the thesis in the spring term, though special circumstances will be considered.
Honors students are encouraged to apply for a summer research fellowship from the School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office in the spring semester of the junior year, so they can work on project over the summer.
During the spring semester, while the student is enrolled in Honors Thesis Writing, their director will meet with the candidate regularly. The thesis director’s responsibilities will include the following: helping the student move from the proposal stage to writing; reading and commenting on several drafts of the project; for English majors, guiding the student in research methods and in matters of bibliography; and, finally, in consultation with the second reader, determining the grade and 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 per week. Because of the time commitment involved, professors are encouraged only to direct one thesis project a year.
The thesis will be read, commented upon, and graded by the thesis director and a second faculty reader chosen by the thesis director in consultation with the student and the honors coordinator.
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 second reader. If the director and second reader feel the project should not be awarded honors, the ENGL 499 or CRWR 499 course is converted to an independent study. Should there be a wide discrepancy in the grades, the coordinator will deliberate with the director and second reader to reach a consensus.