Honors

Interdisciplinary seminar for first-year Honors students. This course analyzes a broad theme (examples may include Love, War, Learning, Numbers, Beauty, Justice, or Stories) from multiple perspectives. Students will engage in multiple learning methodologies promoting development of critical thinking skills, oral and written communication skills, research skills, relationship building, and more. This course is designed for first semester Freshman Honors students.

How do stories teach us how to be human and how do they shape the world around us? This course investigates enduring questions of global human concern through literature, art, folklore, drama, and music. Topics addressed may include gender, race, leadership, divinity, monstrosity, violence, and love through primary texts and individual research projects. Grade of C or higher required in order to substitute for ENGL 160.

How do we know what we know about the physical world? How do numbers work? What is science? Drawing on relevant scientific concepts and methodologies, this course examines issues that emerge at the intersection of humanity's engagement with, and relation to, the natural world, through primary texts and individual projects.

What is good? What is beautiful? What is creativity? This course investigates questions about the interconnectedness of the social, political, economic, physical, and religious environment as related to the fine art disciplines of dance, music, theatre, and visual arts through primary texts and individual projects that combine research and creative work.

Interdisciplinary seminar for Junior/AA-transfer Honors students. This course analyzes a broad theme (examples may include Love, War, Learning, Numbers, Beauty, Justice, or Stories) from multiple perspectives. Students will engage in multiple learning methodologies promoting development of a scholarly identity, deepening critical thinking skills, oral and written communication skills, research skills, relationship building, and preparation for professional or graduate work. This course is designed for transfer students and/or students who enter the Honors Program in their Junior year.

This field course offers hands-on research and/or service learning opportunities. Topics vary per instructor and term. Students engage in data collection, problem-solving, and research writing.

What is freedom? What is punishment? How and why do humans create, maintain, and undermine society? Topics addressed may include the self, human nature, freedom, and society through primary texts in psychology, sociology, economics, law, and history, and individual research projects.

Students work individually with a faculty member in their major to develop and write a thesis proposal for HN 485.

Taken in conjunction with the Senior Seminar/Thesis in their major. Honors students produce a publishable quality piece of writing that they also formally present to the campus community.

Utilizing concepts and frameworks drawn from religious and/or philosophical approaches to ethics, this course examines the nature of human moral responsibility with regard to one or more contemporary issues through primary texts and individual research projects. Possible topics to be addressed may include but are not limited to, the ethics of healthcare systems, climate change, criminal justice/the death penalty, and economic justice.