Honors Program Seminar Proposal Guidelines
The University Honors Program offers Honors students a series of four different seminars, one each academic year. The Program offers several sections of each seminar annually. We eagerly invite proposals for these seminars from faculty across departments and Colleges, and encourage interested faculty to call, email, or visit the Honors Program with questions or ideas for seminars.
A description of the seminars follows; after the description you will find guidelines for proposal submission.
HOPR 1953:
- First-year seminar, offered only fall semester
- 1 credit, pass/fail, meets 75 minutes/week, for only 12 weeks, so it ends before Thanksgiving; capped at 10 students
- Faculty stipend: $2000, paid as overload to your regular salary
- Gives first-year students an introduction to seminar-based learning in a non-threatening and intellectually challenging classroom environment; pursues a particular intellectual topic intensively. In the past, topics have varied widely – some examples include Chinese film; hip hop, philosophy, and politics; entrepreneurship; experimental theater; and project management in engineering.
HOPR 2953
- Sophomore-level seminar, offered either semester
- 2 credits, pass/fail, capped at 15 students
- Faculty stipend: $2500, paid as overload to your regular salary
- Offers students non-mainstream pedagogies or learning experiences – for example, contemplation, innovative integration of theory and practice, community engagement, student-generated class practices. It offers faculty a chance to experiment pedagogically with a small group of students in a non-graded class, and asks students to think consciously and creatively about their own educational trajectory. It may be focused around a practice or an intellectual topic.
HOPR 3953
- Junior-level seminar, offered either semester
- 3 credits, graded, capped at 20 students
- For faculty, typically replaces one course in regular annual teaching load
- Usually discipline-based, but offers faculty the chance to teach subjects outside the typical seminar offerings of their departments. Inter- and multidisciplinary or otherwise unusual seminars are particularly desired. In the past this seminar has at times worked as a laboratory for new departmental and College course development.
HOPR 4953
- Senior-level seminar, offered either semester
- 3 credits, graded, capped at 20 students
- For faculty, typically replaces one course in regular annual teaching load
- Like the junior seminar, this seminar is typically discipline-based. We especially welcome proposals that ask students to do research or other kinds of senior projects; generally these seminars are populated by highly able students, and can offer faculty the chance to teach at a high level.
**Faculty with an interest in offering a senior Honors seminar in a field that requires students to have particular discipline-based skills, such as Engineering, Health Sciences, or Communication Studies, are encouraged to consult with Honors Program Director Amelia Zurcher; we may have a critical mass of Honors students in that discipline who would particularly welcome your course. It is possible to add prerequisites to this seminar.
For seminars to be offered in academic year 2013-14, the deadline is October 15, 2012 (although we are happy to discuss proposals at any time of the year).
Send the proposal electronically to honorsprog@marquette.edu.
Please provide the following information with your proposal:
1. Name and title
2. Department
3. Phone
4. Email address
5. Proposed seminar title
6. Proposed seminar description (no more than 250 words), including a brief
discussion of how your proposed seminar aligns with the seminar descriptions (above).
7. Possible readings or resource material to be used
8. Courses previously taught using the material and/or approaches in your proposed seminar
9. Does this material appear as a portion of any of the courses you currently teach or that are regularly offered at Marquette?
