| Teaching Interdisciplinary
Junior Honors Seminars (Honors 491)
Information and Guidelines for Prospective Instructors
Background
The Interdisciplinary Junior Honors Seminar forms
the "breadth" component of the Honors degree requirements,
contrasting with the in-depth study within a discipline entailed
in the Senior Honors Project, HON 496, which normally follows
the seminar and a course on research methods, HON 495. Enrollment
in HON 491 is limited to Honors Program students. Grading
is CR/NCR. The instructor submits a critique of each student's
participation in discussion and his or her written work, along
with a recommendation of:
- No Honors
- Honors
- High Honors
- Highest Honors.
Honors 491, which can be used toward completion of core requirements
or upper-division electives, also counts toward fulfillment
of the writing intensive requirement. The seminar evaluations,
together with evaluations from the research course, GPA, and
critiques of the Senior Honors Project, form the basis of
the Honors Council's decision on the distinction with which
the student graduates:
- Honors
- High Honors
- Highest Honors
Course Content and Structure
Junior Honors Seminars are taught with enough breadth
to interest any Honors student, regardless of his or her major.
Our approximate current enrollment includes 13 students in
business, 12 in natural sciences and engineering, 20 in the
social sciences, and 50 in English and the humanities. Ideally,
each of them will be able to research some aspect of the course
material related to his or her discipline. Topics for seminars,
therefore, should be amenable to an interdisciplinary approach
and/or the instructor should establish early in the semester
a common base of knowledge which can be used as a foundation
for study, discussion, and individual work.
Usually, ten to twelve students with heterogeneous majors
comprise an Honors seminar, which meets once weekly for two
and a half hours. Often, one student per week is responsible
for a major report and the subsequent discussion. Other formats
are possible, however, as long as they encourage participation
by everyone. Topics which require dominance of class time
by instructor lectures are not appropriate.
Because Junior Honors Seminars are writing intensive, students
are expected to produce at approximately twenty pages of written
work. This written component can be divided up at the instructor's
discretion.
Proposal Format
Explain the topic in sufficient detail for Honors
to gauge its probable relevance to a variety of majors. Please
add a tentative reading list as well as specifics about oral
reports and written assignments. An outline showing prospective
division of the topic among 14-15 sessions and 8-12 participants
is helpful, but optional.
A Final Word
At first glance, our needs may appear to circumscribe
severely an instructor's imagination, but a more accurate
implication is that you can range further afield than you
normally do, tracing the ramifications of your topic further
than usually possible with undergraduates. Indeed, Honors
students expect these seminars to be challenging and rewarding,
to give a foretaste of graduate studies by providing the highest-caliber
undergraduate classes. Honors 491 thus represents a chance
for you to explore a favorite subject with some of the best
and brightest undergraduates Manoa has to offer.
Proposals for the following academic year are due on or about
November 15th. (Please call the office for the exact date
in the year you are submitting a proposal). The above guidelines
should help present your project so that it will fit easily
into seminar format; nevertheless, they are not absolute.
Compensation to departments for release time to teach a course
in HON 491 is always part of the budget of the Honors Program.
Specifics of that compensation are worked out with department
chairs after proposal acceptance.
Thanks for your interest,
James E. Caron, Director
Honors Program |
