Honors Options

Honors Options enable students to pursue honors-level work and earn honors credits in courses where their personal investment in the subject matter is highest. Working closely with faculty and the HUHC Dean’s office, students choose a favorite course and then pursue a plan of readings, writings, and projects that enrich the regular course curriculum. In such circumstances, students’ own enthusiasm leads them to go more deeply into methodology, structure, and theory. They willingly attack more sophisticated questions in these courses because they are motivated by their own natural inclinations to pursue them.

HUHC’s Honors Option program has two objectives.

Tailoring your honors work
First, we want HUHC students to tailor their honors work to their own personal and intellectual passions.

Bonding with the faculty
Secondly, we want HUHC students to use honors options courses to build long-lasting relationships with their faculty, especially (but not exclusively) within the student’s major area of study. For this reason, honors options always include plans for additional one-on-one meetings, where both the students and their instructors can explore the subjects in greater depth.

Honors Options Come in Two Flavors

Independently Negotiated Honors Options (INHO’s)
The name says it all. These are honors options arranged between a single student and a faculty member for a specific course. Typically, a student approaches her or his faculty member in the semester before the course is offered. Together they work out a semester-long plan for enriching the classroom experience. This plan is reviewed and approved by the HUHC Council. Throughout the semester, the student pursues the specified enrichments and meets regularly with the faculty member outside of class to discuss the work he or she is pursuing.

Permanent Honors Options (PHO’s)
Sometimes departments offer courses that regularly attract students interested in honors option opportunities. In those instances, the department may elect to establish a prearranged plan for honors enrichment. These prearranged honors options, or PHO’s are preapproved by the HUHC Council. In all other ways, PHO’s are just like INHO’s. They offer a chance for one-on-one contact with faculty and an opportunity to earn honors credits in courses that have truly captured a student’s interest.