Taking Honors Courses

Some courses have full Honors Sections exclusive to members of the Honors Transfer Program.

Step 1: Check the course schedule for the Honors courses available. They should be listed as "HC" and have a separate CRN to the regular course. These courses are specifically designed for Honors requirements, so all you will need to do is complete the course. Only approved members of the LPC Honors Program with an attribute in the system will be able to register for these courses. If it gives you an ERROR message when you try to enroll that means you are not an approved member and need to apply to the program first. Please also allow time for our attribute to be added after you have been accepted to the program.

You can also look for Honors Courses on this List of current Full Honors Courses on LPC schedule of classes. 

Step 2: Once registered, you won't have to fill out any forms for this class for it to be recognized as an Honors class on your transcript! 

Courses taught by Honors Certified Instructors do not require the student to create their own contract, but they must still follow the assignments given in the Honors Canvas course for their class.

Step 1: Early in the semester, the student should ask the instructor if the class has an "Embedded Honors Component." The most current list of Honors Certified instructors is available only for approved members of the program and can also be found on the Honors Program Canvas.

Step 2: If the instructor has an Embedded Honors Component - they can add you to another special Canvas of their own with the Embedded Honors Component for their specific course. All you would need to do is follow the instructor’s established Honors coursework in that Canvas to earn the Honors designation for their course.

Step 3: Keep in mind that the Embedded Honors Course will have forms and assignments inside the Instructor’s Canvas that must be completed as early as possible, but these are different from the Contract Form, and the approval of the Honors director is NOT required to get started, because the Embedded Component is already preapproved by the Program, so no contracts are necessary. 

A student must receive an "A" or "B" in the course for the honors designation to be added for this option.

Some classes will not have an official Honors section and will not be taught by an Honors certified instructor. In this case, the student must communicate with their instructor in order for them to work together on creating an Honors contract.

Step 1: Early in the semester, the student should ask the instructor if he or she is willing to mentor them through an Honors project/Honors assignments based on a contract.

Step 2: If the instructor agrees, the student should write a draft of an Honors contract for the course they want to take as an Honors Course, and have the instructor approve it. Details for how to create an Honors contract are provided further below.

Step 3: AFTER the student and the instructor reach an agreement and the instructor approves the Contract, the student should submit the final version of the Contract to the Program for the Honors Director's approval in the beginning of the semester (see due dates on the right sidebar), using the Honors Contract Form.  The form is located on the Honors Program Canvas. 

Step 4: Once the student completes the project at the end of the semester and the mentor approves it, the student should submit the completed work to the Program for the Honors Director's approval before the due date (always the last day of instructions for the term). There is a form to submit your completed honors work AFTER it was approved by your instructor, and another form that will ask for your feedback on your experience. The forms are only available on the LPC Honors Program Canvas.

If a student fails to complete the project, there is no penalty. The student just doesn't submit any completion forms.

A student must receive an "A" or "B" in the course for the honors designation to be added for this option.

• The Contract option is not possible for short-term courses.

Instructions for creating a Contract:

Please first check with the instructor if the course does not already have an Honors Component Embedded. If not, carefully study the course's syllabus and decide what topic of the class you would like to study in depth and how. Next write a one-page contract describing what you would like to do as an honors project/additional honors assignments and have it approved by your instructor.

An honors contract should describe a minimum of 25 hours of additional high-level work beyond what is already required in the course. 

Your one-page honors contract should address each of the following:

• What will you create for your honors contract? 
• What methods will you use for your research?
• How frequently will you meet with your mentor instructor?
• How will your mentor evaluate your progress on this project throughout the semester?
• What is the timeline for the stages of your project?

Honors contracts consist of in-depth research, demonstration of critical thinking, and scholarship of greater breadth or depth than the normal coursework. The specific content and shape of the projects vary widely and should be designed to help prepare the student for work at a four-year institution. Topics are individual and very flexible, but here are some examples:

• an empirical research paper based on experiments, fieldwork or an extensive gathering and analysis of statistical data 
• a traditional review of literature paper or a literary analysis
• a case study or series of case studies 
• a specialized series of lab experiments
• an art project
• a musical composition
• a literary composition
• an original software or hardware creation

If the only outcome of the Honors course is a paper (either an original research or a review of literature) then the paper must be 12 pages minimum, based on at least 10 valid scientific sources, and written in the publication style of the subject (APA, MLA, Chicago style...).

If the outcome of the Honors course involves a hands-on product (an art piece, a music composition, a computer program, a website), then it must be still accompanied with a written report with scholarly explanation/sources, however the count of pages can be less than 12 (proportionally to the size of the product created).

Below are some sample Proposal Summaries to give you an idea of what an honors contract can look like:

• Original/Primary Research Proposal Sample
• Review of Literature Essay Proposal Sample
• Computer Science Project Proposal Sample
• Math Project Proposal Sample

Common Contract Problems

These are the most common reasons that honors contracts are not approved:

• The Contract timeline does not have at least 4 steps with separate due dates
• The Contract does not indicate that the student will meet with the instructor at least 4 times (every 2-3 weeks or more often in the summer term)
• The Contract includes a research paper as the only outcome and that paper is proposed to be less that 12 pages in length
• The Contract doesn't mention how many valid sources the project will be based on, in addition to the required sources/readings of the regular course (10 sources is a minimum).
• The writing format for a final paper is not specified or is not appropriate for the discipline (APA versus MLA versus Chicago style etc.).
• The Contract has a product as an outcome (a computer program, a performance, an artifact) and does not mention any written analysis accompanying the product.