The curriculum of the Honors Program provides you the opportunity to participate in the design of your own education within the overall university and departmental curricula, and the opportunity for in-depth study and research in your chosen discipline. Honors courses provide the opportunity for close intellectual interaction between you and your instructor, as well as between you and your Honors classmates. Enrichment is achieved by more in-depth analysis of the subject, extensive discussions and expanded reading. The Honors Program offers five ways to earn Honors credit that are discussed below. The five categories are:
1. Honors sections of General Education and some major classes
2. Honors Seminars
3. Contract courses
4. Special projects that merit Honors credit
5. Credit for Advanced Placement classes
As a member of the Honors Program, you are eligible to take low enrollment Honors sections--capped at 20 students--of regular General Education survey courses which are taught by some of A&T’s best faculty members. Honors sections provide a deeper understanding of the subject matter and challenge you to produce a higher quality of work than students in a non-Honors section of the same course do. Such classes encourage the development of your independent, creative and critical thinking skills. They provide opportunities for substantial student participation in class discussion, group projects, and other forms of engagement with the materials being studied. Essay tests and other writing assignments are stressed rather than objective or short answer exams. Where possible, the course content includes substantial use of primary and interdisciplinary sources.
Honors Seminars are generally experimental classes with a global and/or interdisciplinary focus. In some cases, rarely taught Department classes are also offered as Honors seminars if they can be enriched to include global and/or interdisciplinary components. Honors seminars are capped at 20 students and are open only to members of the Honors Program. Honors Seminars are cross-listed in each semester’s Schedule of Classes under both the Department offering the course and in the Honors Program section of the brochure.
In theory, all rarely taught courses in the Undergraduate Bulletin could be enriched in ways that qualify them to be taught as Honors Seminars. In practice, however, only lower level Departmental courses and special topics classes will probably be offered as Honors Seminars. This is because upper level Departmental courses tend to focus on skills and content that both build upon lower level classes and are designed to meet the needs of majors in a particular field. Honors students, however, come from majors all across campus. Thus, in most cases, only classes that neither require substantial prior knowledge in the field nor have prerequisites will be taught as Honors Seminars.
The Honors Contract is a mechanism for adding an ‘honors dimension’ to a class which is not already an Honors course. The Honors Contract is a way that you can help design your own educational experience in consultation with the instructors of the classes you take. Only full-time faculty members are eligible to enter into and supervise Honors contracts.
Honors Contracts will only be approved under the following situations:
1. When there are no Honors courses offered that fit into your degree program requirements.
2. When you are already enrolled in an Honors course and would like to take one or more additional classes for honors credit that are not offered as Honors courses.
3. When the courses you are required to take conflict with available Honors classes and no schedule adjustments are possible.
4. Finally, no Honors contracts will be approved for a course that is being offered as an Honors class, unless the Honors class is full.
The Honors Contract process is designed to foster creativity in projects which are acceptable to both you and your instructor. Any number of enhancing activities and projects are possible. The underlying goal of the exercise is for you and your instructor to develop proposed projects or activities that add value to your academic experience, not merely more work. The enriching activities listed on the Honors Contract Form should require about 20 hours of work beyond that required by the regular course assignments.
It is your responsibility to approach a faculty member about the possibility of earning Honors credit in a class by means of an Honors Contract project. Although faculty members are not required to enter into an Honors Contract arrangement, most are willing. Once you and your instructor agree on the terms of an Honors Contract, you should fill out the appropriate portions of the official "Request for Honors Credit by Contract" form and have your instructor sign off on the proposed contract where indicated. Once the form is properly signed, you should submit it to the Director of the Honors Program for final approval. A copy of the "Request for Honors Credit by Contract" form is at the end of this Handbook.
The deadline for submitting the signed Honors Contract form to the Director of the Honors Program is the end of the fourth week of the fall or spring semesters and the end of the second week of a summer session.
The Honors Contract does not affect your grade in the course. To receive Honors credit for the course, however, you must earn a final grade of "A" or "B" in addition to completing the contract. The deadline for completing the Honors Contract work is the end of the semester or summer session in which the course is taken. The only circumstance in which an "incomplete" Contract is permitted is if the student receives a grade of ‘I’ in the course. The Contract then must be completed at or before the time the professor removes the ‘I’ grade. Students who complete the course, but not the Honors Contract, by the end of the semester or summer session will not receive Honors credit for the course. At the end of the semester, the faculty member needs to contact the Director of the Honors Program only if you either did not complete your project, or if the work you carried out was not of sufficient quality to merit Honors credit.
If you are in a major that normally awards academic credit for completing off-campus internships or cooperative learning activities, you may earn Honors credit for these experiences by using the Honors Contract process. You must file the properly completed and signed Honors Contract form prior to beginning the internship. Your Honors credit would be awarded through the course number normally used in your major for giving students course credit for off-campus internships. However, you may earn no more than six hours of Honors credit by means of internship experiences. No Honors credit will be awarded for an internship if your Department does not normally award credit towards graduation to students for these experiences.
If you take part in an exchange program with another institution, you may earn Honors credit by using the Honors Contract process. Likewise, if you spend a semester studying abroad, Honors will award you six hours of Honors credit for the experience. The "Request for Honors Credit by Contract" form is on the next two pages. It is also available at the Honors website. Plus, at the start of each semester, you can get copies of the form from a box on Dr. Meyers’ office door.
The Honors Program encourages its members to take part in imaginative academic and professional enrichment projects that may not be directly related to a course they are taking. Such projects may include research you are conducting in cooperation with a faculty member in your department, special community service activities where you are taking a leadership role, an activity linked to a Futures grant, or some other activity that falls into none of the above categories. To have the activity you are involved in count for Honors credit, you must consult with, and obtain the approval of, the Director of the Honors Program. Such special projects may be used to meet the requirement that you take a minimum of one course for Honors credit each semester. The Honors Program will keep track of such special projects so that you will receive proper credit towards the completion of one, or both, Honors tracks.
Students who earn a ‘5’ on an Advanced Placement exam will be awarded Honors credit for one equivalent A&T course. Students who earn a ‘4’ on an Advanced Placement exam may be awarded Honors credit for the equivalent A&T class if they complete an Honors course in the same discipline with an ‘A’ or ‘B’ grade. Honors contracts may not be used to earn Honors credit for courses earned by means of an Advanced Placement score. No Honors credit will be awarded for courses earned by means of a ‘3’ on an Advanced Placement test. Students will be awarded no more than eight hours of Honors credit for Advanced Placement work.