For Current Students

Honors courses vary by semester and range across all subject matters. Often they can be cross listed and count toward both honors and General Education requirements. Check out the honors course listings.

Preparing for a presentation? Having a group study session? Reserve a room in the Honors Center or one of the rooms dedicated to honors students in the Guerrieri Academic Commons.

In partnership with The Women’s Circle of Salisbury University, the Thomas E. Bellavance Honors Program annually awards the “Educational Enhancement Award.” This one-time award of $1,000 was established to enhance the educational experience of a deserving student who endeavors to experience an activity outside of the traditional classroom setting to further their education. Applicants must demonstrate a commitment to community service and academic excellence. Award recipients are recognized each year at the Honors Spring Banquet and their names appear on a large plaque that is publicly displayed in the Honors Center.

This course is really a set of individual consultation sessions meant to prepare students for completing a semester-long Honors thesis project. Students should plan to enroll in HONR 490 during a semester prior to completing the actual thesis. During the Thesis Preparation semester, students are tasked with accomplishing four goals:

1. Identify a Thesis Mentor
2. Develop a Thesis Prospectus
3. Identify Additional Members of the Thesis Committee
4. Identify a Venue for Public Presentation of the Thesis Project

A thesis is a significant piece of independent work – conducted under the guidance of faculty members – that puts the skills and methods that you have learned as an undergraduate and applies it to your discipline. They come in many different forms. Some theses:

• develop and defend an argument
• report and analyze laboratory experiments, field studies, or surveys
• outline case studies
• present portfolios
• display artistic accomplishments

Regardless, the thesis is an important capstone experience for Honors students in demonstrating excellence in their fields of study. Because thesis work comes in many shapes and sizes, there is no standard length of an acceptable thesis. From the mdsoar.org page, please select Salisbury University, then under the header "Collections in this Community", please select "SU Honors College Theses". There you will find the archive of previously completed honors thesis projects.

This is a faculty member who will act as a mentor for the length of your project. They should be someone who knows something about your chosen field of study and is willing to meet throughout the semester to discuss your research plan. He or she will need to help you identify a project, forge research questions or topics, read drafts, provide substantial feedback, and generally advise you in the background of your work. They should also be someone who intends to guide you through your actual thesis research and writing in the following semester. You can plan on meeting with your thesis mentor frequently during the semester when you are completing your thesis. See previous Honors Thesis mentors.

A committee member is a faculty member who may or may not know something about your topic but can provide a second and third perspective on your research project. Normally one of the committee members is familiar with your field of study, while the second committee member comes from a discipline or department outside of your area of study. The committee members (or readers) you choose for HONR 490 will be responsible for reading a draft of your thesis and providing feedback in the late stages of its development.

A typical Thesis Prospectus includes an overview of the research topic and introduction to the research questions, a short literature review of current scholarship on the area of proposed study, an outline of possible methodologies, a timetable for completion, and a brief bibliography of recent scholarly works on the topic. The thesis prospectus should be between 1,000-1,250 words in length (exclusive of bibliography).

Part of good research or artistic expression are the presentation of and discussion about those ideas with a larger community. The Clarke Honors College greatly values this aspect of scholarly discourse and encourages students to present their work at conferences and public venues. The program also helps support these endeavors through travel grants, which are available to honors students in “good standing” with the Clarke Honors College.