For Faculty: Propose an HN Course
The Honors Program welcomes applications for new Honors-designated courses in all colleges and disciplines, as well as for the first-year seminar. Information about making an application for Honors designation of a class is at the bottom of this page. A robust offering of interdisciplinary classes is essential to the success of our program and to the development of some of our highest-achieving students. Honors courses feature small class sizes (limited to 20-25 students, except Honors First-year Seminar which is limited to 15 students) with highly motivated, dedicated students.
The UMW Honors Program adheres to a belief in engaged and stimulating learning opportunities that challenge students to grow intellectually rather than the practice of simply adding extra work to a course. Quality rather than quantity is the goal of an Honors course. Instructors are encouraged to identify activities or projects that involve group work or foster collaboration and to consider ways that learning may be self-directed or differentiated (for example, offering various options to reach a certain learning goal of the course). HN-designated courses or sections should be designed to nurturing the intellectual potential of your students through activities that, as appropriate to the individual discipline:
- develop communication skills
- incorporate an interdisciplinary focus
- include innovative pedagogy
- enhance research skills and/or creative production
- apply critical reading, writing, speaking, problem-solving, and thinking skills that incorporate information literacy, and an appreciation of audience
- include greater breadth than non-Honors course sections
- incorporate enrichment opportunities for students and faculty
- utilize flexible approaches that accommodate different learning preferences
- prompt analysis of their own and others’ assumptions
The National Collegiate Honors Council offers some guidelines for Honors course design.
HN-designated courses are designed by faculty to meet at least four of the seven Honors Program Learning Outcomes. Faculty will indicate on their syllabi which of these learning outcomes their course is designed to meet.
All courses offered with Honors designation (HN) must be approved by the Honors Program committee. Proposals should be submitted through CIM. (See below for proposal preview.)
Deadlines for AY 24-25
| For courses to be offered in: | the proposal deadline is: |
|---|---|
| SPRING 2025 | September 16, 2024 |
| SUMMER 2025 | November 18, 2024 |
| FALL 2025 | January 21, 2025 |
Propose a New Honors Course
Applications for Honors designation are made through the University’s CIM system. General guidelines for changing the designation of a course in CIM may be useful, and the Honors Program offers this pdf preview of its specific application: Honors Designation in CIM.