Generally, the Honors Program does not allow a student to H-Option a course for which we have a regular honors equivalent. Some departments (e.g., Kinesiology and Nursing) have designated certain courses as their preferred H-Option courses. Check with your department head if you are uncertain, but most courses are eligible for H-Option.
While we certainly hope you will support Honors Program students in their quest to earn the Honors Diploma, it is up to the professor whether or not to accept a student’s request to complete an H-Option.
The nature of the work will vary from course to course, but all honors contracts should provide students with additional experience, insight, and/or academic rigor. The connection to you as a faculty mentor is also an important aspect of the honors component.
Contracts frequently include these kinds of elements:
Faculty are highly encouraged to have students work on projects that are mutually beneficial. A recent monograph from the National Collegiate Honors Council points out that honors students can learn about important issues and current research, develop self-presentation and advocacy strategies, and hone technological and employment skills from engaging closely in the work that faculty do every day such as:
The more you are able to involve honors students in the real work that you do as a faculty member (teaching, research, service), the more valuable the honors contract experience is likely to be for both you and the student.
Yes.
Contact the Honors Program at [email protected]. We would be happy to provide you with some models from past semesters.
While they’ll each need to fill out a separate form, if multiple students in a course wish to complete the H-Option, a group assignment would be perfectly acceptable.
H-Option certifications are due by the last regular day of class. Setting the due date for completion of the honors contract a few weeks before the end of the semester gives you time to evaluate, ask for revisions, and/or certify in a timely manner.
The minimum level grade for awarding honors credit should be spelled out in the H-Option contract.
Some departments insist on ‘A’ level work from Honors Program students to entertain awarding honors credits. Other departments feel that the rigor of honors work is such that a ‘C’ grade in an honors course reflects average level work on above-average level rigor. While honors students typically do excellent work, deciding this issue in advance with the student can save a lot of anguish later.
It depends on how the contract was written. Some contracts are written such that the baseline grade in the course is affected by the honors component. For example, if the honors contract required a student to give longer speeches, write more in-depth papers, or take an essay exam rather than the multiple choice exam other students were taking, the student’s performance on the honors component of the course would necessarily affect the student’s final grade in the course. Other contracts are written such that students complete extra work beyond the regular course requirements (e.g., an extra paper and presentation). In these instances, should a student not complete the honors component of the course, the professor could simply grade the student as regular and deny the issuance of the honors credit at the end of the term.
Once the Honors Program receives your email confirming the student completed the terms of the H-Option contract, we contacts the registrar who adds an ‘7’ to the course
number on the student’s transcripts (e.g., ECON 2010 becomes ECON 2017).
While the Honors Program wishes it had the budget to compensate faculty for mentoring students in H-Option contracts, sadly, we do not. Many departments, however, consider mentoring of students in undergraduate research as an important area of the annual evaluation. The Honors Program appreciates the invaluable support your willingness to work with honors students provides.
