Honors College

General Questions/Ideas for the Creation of Honors Courses:

1. What sort of course would you design presuming you will have 20-25 bright and hard-working students (those who will do the reading and participate actively in discussion/lab)?

2. In terms of course ideas, what are the driving questions and/or significant topics that shape your discipline and how could they provide the framework for a course?

3. More broadly, how do you relate your discipline to humanity and the world? Put another way, how does your discipline contribute to questions of human existence, purpose, meaning, understanding, and/or human potential and limitation, etc?

What you can expect of Honors students:

1. Performance standards: Honors students average a 3.71 GPA in their course work. They must maintain a 3.25 at Boise State to remain in good standing in the Honors College. Typically, they have achieved at or above a 1200 composite SAT score or a 27 ACT score.
2. Approach to coursework: Honors students do their homework. They read, they ask questions and actively participate in discussions, and they want to learn. This makes for a invigorating learning environment.
3. Concerns about grades and performance: Honors students can be anxious about grades and performance. Some Honors students think a “B” or even a “B+” is a bad grade. In addition, Honors students sometimes have difficulty with critical feedback. They have generally completed high school without a lot of difficulty and without having their teachers challenge their critical thinking and/or writing skills.

What Honors students and the Honors College expect of Honors faculty/courses:

1. Challenge: Honors students want stimulating courses that challenge their thinking and that push them to understand the world in new ways. Therefore, challenging texts, labs, or other projects and thought-provoking discussions are essential to Honors.
2. Access: Honors students want consultation outside of class and they pay careful attention to and are eager for detailed assessment of their course work. (They are also prone to grade quibbling. I address this issue at the beginning of all of my courses: e.g. “if an A- or a B+ is a bad grade to you, you might want to rethink taking this class”).
3. Mentoring: faculty should be prepared to model the life of the mind and share their intellectual passion, advice, and guidance with Honors students.

Features of Lower Division Honors Courses

1. Class Format: Honors lower division classes involve much more student discussion and student-faculty interaction than “standard” lower division classes. We want to convey to the Honors student the excitement that first motivated each of the faculty to involve themselves in their discipline. They are offered in a seminar format where students are required to engage in thorough discussion, critical reading, writing, laboratory experience, and research. Honors classes should incorporate critical components of a particular discipline, and students should be made aware of that discipline-specific methodology and how it relates to any intellectual exercise. Oral and written expression should be a major part of the Honors experience.
2. Class Rigor: Honors Classes should demonstrably stretch student intellects. Classes should develop student proficiency and fluency in oral and written expression as well as critical thinking/analysis and synthesis of ideas. Those goals may be reached by thoughtful and organized discussion of assigned reading, student presentation of material, and frequent writing assignments. Honors classes should never be viewed as simply involving more work when compared with a regular class. The emphasis in these classes should be on exploring the subject matter with both greater breadth and depth, which the smaller class sizes in Honors permits.
3. Interaction: The small class format permits instructors to get to know the students better. The nature of the interaction is left to the discretion of the instructor. Typically, however, Honors students have a closer relationship with their Honors instructors than with other professors, and look to them as role models, for above average amounts of evaluation, for more consultation, for a greater amount of insight into the professor’s research interests.
4. Faculty Research: If possible, faculty should incorporate their own research or creative activity (either published/exhibited or in progress) into Honors Core Classes. Faculty can use these lower division courses to identify students with whom the faculty member may establish a long-term academic/research relationship.

Upper Division Honors Courses

1. The four features of lower division courses apply here, too.
2. We encourage Honors seminars on special topics, developed by Boise State University faculty. See three general questions at the top of the document.
3. Seminars are limited to 25 students. Ideally, seminars are limited to Honors students. We recognize, however, that faculty may wish on occasion to admit other students. We encourage faculty to look especially to students with strong academic records, special expertise and/or with exceptional motivation in the area.
4. Seminars ought to include a significant research component and/or artistic endeavor. They should promote student initiative and disciplined practice.
5. Faculty should be able to expect high quality in all student work. Faculty should be able to use texts/materials that are especially challenging and may be the sort of reading assigned to a first-year graduate class.
6. We encourage courses on more experimental topics, or conventional topics with more experimental course designs. At the same time, we resist the temptation to try anything and everything, where students may feel a bit like they truly are subjects of an experiment.
7. We encourage courses that feature multiple intellectual and/or disciplinary perspectives. We encourage courses that are team-taught.

Typical Honors Assignments and Activities

The goal here is to provide more in-depth treatment/ or different ways to explore the material rather than just MORE or LONGER assignments.

1. Writing Instruction and Assignments: Honors courses are generally both reading- and writing-intensive. Therefore, it is appropriate to include numerous writing assignments of varying lengths and types, including, but not, limited to:
   • formal analytical essays ranging from 5 to 15 pages in length
   • 1 or 2 page book reviews (encouraging precision and economy of language)
   • literature reviews
   • assignments that have students explore a particular topic, answer a specific question, or accomplish particular objectives set by the instructors
   • Other components may include small group work and write-ups, oral presentations, or community service components that tie in to class concerns; and
   • revisions of any or all of the above.
2. Out-of-class Assignments: Have students participate in out-of-class activities that extend class concepts. These might be lectures, arts events, tours, etc. Have students prepare a brief oral presentation for the class about the relevance of the activity to the class.
3. Oral defense: Have students participate in an oral defense of a project for class. This defense might be with the professor only, or with other students.
4. Debate & discussion: Create a series of point/counterpoint discussions in your class that model a formal debate.
5. Discussion Leaders: Have students prepare, in writing, questions or comments relevant to course material and lead class discussion.
6. Online discussion group: Have students engage in an online discussion group. Post topics for discussion and facilitate so that students stay on track with course content. They might also create an online discussion for the class, where they serve as facilitators for the discussion.
7. Teach a lesson: Have students take responsibility for teaching a chapter, a concept, or a method. Students should practice with professor first to ensure their understanding.

To see a list of those who currently teach (and who have taught) in the Honors College  please visit the Honors Faculty page.