Lower Division Program:

All honors students who begin as entering first-year students will be required to take at least 20 credit hours of lower-division honors courses (i.e., 4 four-credit courses and 4 one-credit honors colloquia series), selected from a broad spectrum of disciplines. Students will register for courses in accord with an individual honors plan approved by their academic advisor and the Honors Program Director.

Honors courses are designed to be interdisciplinary and participatory. As an example, a new honors course for fall, 2004—the History of Cleveland, the last fifty years—will explore the city’s past fifty years with the leaders and participants who experienced the events first-hand. These individuals will join the class to discuss their roles with you, and you will have the opportunity to become an active participant in the discussions rather than be just a listener. You will find out what options city leaders had, and why they chose certain paths and rejected others. In addition, the course will use the city’s myriad available resources to inform your understanding of the key crises and opportunities the city faced, how it dealt with them, and how the future can benefit from your analysis and conclusions.

Upper Division Program:

The honors experience for upper division honors students will be tailored to the requirements of each student’s chosen major(s) and specific goals. Junior and senior honors students’ courses will be selected through consultation with faculty members in their major(s).

Upper division honors students will have the opportunity to do additional honors work under faculty supervision in established courses, enroll in graduate courses, participate in a faculty member’s research project or laboratory, do an independent research project, a service learning project, and/or an internship, job, or engage in a co-op experience. In some departments, students will also be encouraged to attend professional meetings. Each semester there will be regular honors colloquia that will cover topics spanning the academic disciplines.