Honors Program

More information about the Honors Program can be found on the Morris Web site.

The Honors Program represents an opportunity for UMM students to pursue an interdisciplinary and interdivisional curriculum and work toward graduation with honors. All UMM students are eligible to participate in the Honors Program. Students normally apply to the program in the spring semester of their freshman year and begin coursework in their sophomore year. While everyone may apply, academic success in the fall semester, faculty recommendations, and a short essay may be used to limit the number of students to those with the proven motivation and likely ability to succeed in the program. Applications are available at the Honors Office, 231 Community Services. Students wishing to register for an honors course must be enrolled in the Honors Program. If spaces remain in an honors course at the end of registration, non-honors students may enroll with the permission of the instructor.

To graduate with honors, participants must 1) complete the course IS 2001H—Honors: Traditions in Human Thought, usually in the fall of their sophomore year; 2) complete at least four other Honors courses at UMM; 3) successfully complete a multidisciplinary senior honors project; and 4) earn a UMM GPA of 3.50 or higher.

Honors courses are limited to a class size of 20. The elective courses examine a particular topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. The courses are often team-taught by faculty from different UMM academic divisions and concern subjects of special interest to the faculty who design them.

The senior honors project is a substantial scholarly or creative work that shows students’ intellectual engagement and their ability to articulate and defend their choices regarding methodology and subject matter to a panel of three faculty from different disciplines, including the project’s adviser. It is the responsibility of the student to secure a project adviser, identify two other faculty for the panel in consultation with the project adviser, and register for at least 2 credits of IS 4994—Senior Honors Project. Students should submit the completed project to the Honors Program director and panel members by April 1 and arrange for the defense.

The list of honors courses may change from year to year. The listing below represents a sampling of courses that have been offered in the past and which may be offered in the 2007–2009 biennium. Actual course offerings appear in the Class Schedule.

Sample Honors Courses—Updated listings are available through the Honors Program director. For complete course descriptions, see the Division Structure and Course Descriptions section; symbols are explained near the beginning of that section.

Note: The following courses all require approval from the instructor for students not in the Honors Program.

IS 2001H. Honors: Traditions in Human Thought. (Hum) (2 cr; prereq participation in the Honors Program or #; fall, every year)

IS 3111H. Honors: The End of the World as We’ve Known It: The Apocalypse Then and Now. (SS) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; spring)

IS 3203H. Honors: A Cross-Section of the Enlightenment. (Hist) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3204H. Honors: Ecological Health and the Sustainability of Common-Property Resources. (Envt) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3205H. Honors: The Early Modern Body in Literature, Philosophy, and Science. (Hum) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3206H. Honors: Introduction to Game Theory. (M/SR) (2 cr; prereq participation in the Honors Program, high school higher algebra or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3207H. Honors: Utopia(s). (Hum) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall)

IS 3208H. Honors: Totalitarianism: Imagination, Theory, and Experience. (SS) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; spring)

IS 3209H. Honors: Apocalypse Now? The Science and Policy of Preparing for a Catastrophe. (Envt) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3211H. Honors: Republic or Empire? The American 1890s. (Hist) (2 cr; prereq participation in the Honors Program or #; offered when feasible; fall, spring)

IS 3212H. Honors: Global Encounters and the Making of the Contemporary World, 1450 to the Present. (HDiv) (2-4 cr [max 4 cr]; prereq high school higher algebra, participation in Honors Program or instr consent; offered when feasible; spring)

IS 3221H. Honors: Open Source vs. Proprietary Technology: The Economics of Networks and Innovation. (SS) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; spring)

IS 3231H. Honors: Drama, Philosophy, and Politics in Classical Greece. (Hum) (2 cr; prereq participation in Honors Program or #; fall, spring)